Christianity was born among the Jews living in Palestine. Almost all of Prophet Jesus' (pbuh) people, including his followers, were Jews who lived by the Mosaic law. The most fundamental characteristic of Judaism was its uncompromising monotheism.
However, after Prophet Jesus' (pbuh) ascension to God's presence, Christianity began to assume a very different form as it moved out of the Jewish world and into the pagan one. Its traditional monotheism, the basis of the Mosaic law, underwent a great change: Due to the belief in the trinity, Prophet Jesus (pbuh) began to be regarded as divine. (Surely God is beyond all such misguided beliefs and expressions.)
However, after Prophet Jesus' (pbuh) ascension to God's presence, Christianity began to assume a very different form as it moved out of the Jewish world and into the pagan one. Its traditional monotheism, the basis of the Mosaic law, underwent a great change: Due to the belief in the trinity, Prophet Jesus (pbuh) began to be regarded as divine. (Surely God is beyond all such misguided beliefs and expressions.)
The concept of the trinity, the culmination of a long process, refers to belief in a three-part God consisting of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It has become one of traditional Christianity's most important elements of faith, despite its contradiction of monotheistic belief in our Almighty Lord as the One and Only. It may be described as follows:
- According to the belief in the trinity, God revealed Himself in three distinct identities, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and yet they are the same thing. In other words, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God Himself, or God exists as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.According to this irrational and mistaken belief, each of the three components of the trinity is God, and thus possesses the same power and capacity. (Surely God is beyond that!)
- It is believed that Prophet Jesus (pbuh) is the son of God, and therefore possesses the same nature as God. This belief, known as homoousian, states that the Father and the Son have the same essence.
- It is believed that Prophet Jesus (pbuh) was not created, but came from eternity as the son of God, was made flesh and became a human being, and descended from heaven to bring salvation to humanity through his crucifixion. This belief is known as incarnation.
The belief in the trinity, which is a mistaken one seeing our Almighty Lord through a superstitious eye, ascribes divinity to Prophet Jesus (pbuh), sent by God as a prophet to his people. However, despite its many internal contradictions and anti-monotheistic nature, it still occupies a very important place in Christian belief. In fact, some Christians consider it a "litmus test" for those who consider themselves to be Christian.
However, history shows that those people and communities who rejected this erroneous belief and maintained that Prophet Jesus (pbuh) was merely a human being and prophet of God have been dealt with harshly. The evidence that such people produced from the New Testament and the life of Prophet Jesus (pbuh) was always ignored, and people were forbidden to discuss such matters. As we shall see in the following chapters, opponents of belief in the trinity claimed that its proponents openly ascribed partners to God. As a result, church authorities branded them and their followers as unbelievers, heretics, or enemies of the faith. Some were exiled, and others were hanged or burnt alive by the Inquisition's courts. Yet this did not reduce their numbers or prevent the spread of their ideas. Nonetheless, the proponents of the trinity were always in the majority.
Even impartial researchers have determined that true Christianity is that muwahhid (monotheistic) Christianity that was oppressed during Europe's Dark and Middle Ages. Many Biblical scholars, especially those beginning with the eighteenth century, have concluded that the trinity, atonement for sins, and similar beliefs are nowhere to be found in the New Testament or other early Christian scriptures that did not make it into the New Testament.
However, history shows that those people and communities who rejected this erroneous belief and maintained that Prophet Jesus (pbuh) was merely a human being and prophet of God have been dealt with harshly. The evidence that such people produced from the New Testament and the life of Prophet Jesus (pbuh) was always ignored, and people were forbidden to discuss such matters. As we shall see in the following chapters, opponents of belief in the trinity claimed that its proponents openly ascribed partners to God. As a result, church authorities branded them and their followers as unbelievers, heretics, or enemies of the faith. Some were exiled, and others were hanged or burnt alive by the Inquisition's courts. Yet this did not reduce their numbers or prevent the spread of their ideas. Nonetheless, the proponents of the trinity were always in the majority.
Even impartial researchers have determined that true Christianity is that muwahhid (monotheistic) Christianity that was oppressed during Europe's Dark and Middle Ages. Many Biblical scholars, especially those beginning with the eighteenth century, have concluded that the trinity, atonement for sins, and similar beliefs are nowhere to be found in the New Testament or other early Christian scriptures that did not make it into the New Testament.
As a result, some contemporary Christian denominations reject the trinity. The Unitarian Church, for example, is a large denomination that rejects this belief. Although there may be differences of opinion among them, such congregations deny that Prophet Jesus (pbuh) is the son of God and say that true Christianity commands one to believe in God as the One and Only. Many of them also emphasize the erroneous belief that Prophet Jesus (pbuh) was crucified to atone for humanity's sins. Today, one can find anti-trinitarian Christians throughout the Christian world under different names and different ecclesiastical organizations. In the United States in particular, "opponents of the trinity" are growing stronger every day, and there is a great increase in the number of people openly expressing the truth in the Christian world. Among these, The Worldwide Church of God is particularly noteworthy. The founder of this church, Herbert W. Armstrong, maintains that belief in the trinity is a superstition that emerged under the influence of pagan cultures.
 |
On the other hand, it is a fact that some anti-trinitarian views emerged within various Christian churches but that they were suppressed. For instance, the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist movement, which was born in the nineteenth century and stresses that Prophet Jesus (pbuh) will soon return, actually built their denomination on Arian foundations (Arius a young deacon in the Alexandrian church, was an important Christian of the third century who rejected the trinity and the divine nature ascribed to Prophet Jesus [pbuh]) However, the charges of deviation from Christianity leveled at this denomination by other churches led to its abandonment of Arianism and subsequent adoption of the trinity. This interesting volte-face is today admitted by members of that church.1
One of the most noteworthy aspects of this subject is that trinitarian belief does not appear in the Bible itself. It appears neither in the Old Testament, the holy book of the Jews, nor in the New Testament, the Christian holy text. Rather, it is based on misinterpretations of a few New Testament passages, and the word itself was only used for the first time by Theophilus of Antioch at the end of the second century. Acceptance of the belief took place much later. Given these facts, Biblical researchers and scholars, as well as opponents of the trinity, ask such questions as: If this belief were really true, did Prophet Jesus (pbuh) not state it unequivocally? And why is trinitarian belief not openly stated in the Bible? Their answers are unambiguous: No belief that is not clearly present in the New Testament, and which was thus unknown to the early Christians, can represent the basis of Christianity. This is an error that came about after Prophet Jesus (pbuh) and under the influence of the established Greek [pagan] culture.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder