Hey everybody, it's Pastor Jonathan Shelley from Steadfast Baptist Church, and I wanted
to make a video to share a couple resources that I've been looking into and I've read
a few different times.
But there is an article on Stanford EDU's website where they discuss all the different
ideas and different philosophies regarding the understanding of the Trinity.
What I found pretty fascinating about this particular article that I wanted to share
is that this viewpoint is not really coming from any kind of religious dogma, but simply
is just kind of presenting the arguments of what Trinity views exist.
Now, I was not raised Catholic or having really any Catholic influence.
I actually grew up in an Evangelical church.
It was actually called Trinity Fellowship Church, so they really emphasized the Trinity.
We went to Christmas plays, they would have God come out on a stage, and it was always
three men that were dressed identical and looked very similar, and they would come out
on the stage and one would represent the Father, one would represent the Son, one would represent
the Holy Spirit.
And so I've always been raised believing essentially a particular viewpoint of the Trinity, and
would have thought that everyone agreed with that.
Most individuals, when they hear the word Trinity, they associate it with the idea of
there being one God in three persons, or one God manifest in three persons, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.
And I think that the vast majority of Christians and even Catholics would probably all agree
to that definition and even that understanding.
When we go out soul-winning and we run into Catholics or other Christians, pretty much
everybody recognizes the Trinity as valid.
They believe in the Father and the Son, and they believe that the Father loves the Son,
He sent His Son, and that the Son loves the Father and was obedient to the Father, and
we kind of see the different experiences from the Father and the Son throughout the Scripture.
And so it's pretty easy to explain to people about the Trinity.
But the Trinity is a deep subject, there's a lot of information about it, and what I
like about this article is it really kind of gets into some of the nuance of understanding
the Trinity.
Now the article is kind of broken into a few different sections.
The first part of this particular paper identifies a specific theory called the one-self theory.
And in the second section, it describes a three-self theory, and then it has a couple
subsequent ideas or explanations that are a little bit more fringe-type beliefs when
it comes to Trinity views.
But I certainly fall in the camp of the three-self theory.
I believe that is exactly what the Bible teaches in regards to understanding who God is, and
I think that it really fits what the Scripture actually teaches and the words used in the
Bible to describe God the Father and Jesus Christ.
They do have different drawings as well that you can see in the particular article.
In the one-self theory, they have kind of what we typically have seen is a diagram of
God—and I'll put this on the screen—a diagram of God, and then you have the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit there.
They're all God, but then they're not each other.
And I agree with that diagram.
In the two-self theory, there's another diagram that's very similar.
It's just kind of drawn in a little bit different angle, but essentially has the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, and they're all sharing in the divine nature.
And it kind of has a few different descriptors to how the Father is unbegotten, the Son is
begotten, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son, and how they're not each
other.
And, of course, you know, I believe when it comes to understanding the Trinity that, of
course, people are going to be in different stages or levels of understanding.
And to me, as long as someone acknowledges that there's one God and three persons, then
there within orthodoxy they believe in the Trinity.
But when it comes to other denominations and other schools of thought, there are individuals
that kind of subscribe to this one-self theory.
Now, I personally do not agree with that.
I think that it's wrong, and in some ways it's even heresy.
But I would still, you know, accept that that person could be saved and maybe just confused
or doesn't necessarily understand maybe some certain scriptures in the Bible.
But people that deny that there is one God or deny that there's three persons, you know,
I believe that person's not only in heresy, but they're really just not even saved.
They don't have an understanding of the scripture at all.
And so, you know, it's important to kind of understand and distinguish these lines.
But I'm also going to preach, you know, what I believe this article kind of lays out is
the three-self theory.
You can see in John, chapter number 17.
So according to the text of scripture, the Bible says that God the Father has his own
self distinguishing him from the son.
And I believe it makes it very clear that the word self is a biblical word and that
it would make sense that the father has his self and that the son has his own self, that
they both have their own selves.
And notice that this is not talking about this moment of time, but rather this is talking
about before the world.
And notice that Jesus Christ is describing how he had glory with the father, talking
about there being a distinction between the father and the son, and the text even using
this idea of self as a distinction between the persons.
And so I believe it makes sense to say that there are three selves when we have an understanding
of who the Trinity is.
Jesus also makes reference to this in John, chapter number six, when he talks about how
he came down from heaven not to do his own will, but the will of him that sent me.
That's really important because Jesus Christ is denoting a specific point in time.
He says that I came down from heaven.
That's a specific point in time.
And he says the reason that he came down from heaven, the motivation for coming down from
heaven was not his own will.
So we see that the will of the son is not what motivated him to come down from heaven,
but it was rather the will of the father.
And it makes sense because of the distinction in selves and wills that are seen in Scripture
and are very clearly laid out.
And so that's why I think the Bible is really clear on their own selves.
I believe that when the Bible talks about Jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of
the father, that Jesus really is sitting right next to the father.
I believe John 1, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word
was God, that it's really describing Jesus Christ the son with the father.
And that these are two distinct persons.
You know the Bible uses the word person to describe the father.
In Hebrews when Jesus Christ is talking about, I'm sorry when the Bible is talking about
Jesus Christ and talking about the father, it's saying how the son is the express image
of his person.
So the father is described as being a person, the father is described as being a self.
Jesus Christ is described as being with the father and having his own glory and the father
having his own separate person, his own separate self.
And so I think this is very clear that the Bible teaches that God is comprised of Father,
Son and Holy Spirit who have always existed, they are eternal.
And that the son, when he did come to earth, did become flesh and became a man.
But I do agree with the idea of the hypostatic union that you can't divide this human nature
and God nature in Jesus Christ, but you know that his experience on earth was one experience
that he's not dividing himself constantly between these two natures.
And when Jesus Christ is saying, not my will but thine be done, that he's talking about
how the son has a separate will from the father, not just only presented in some fashion
of a human distinction between a divine distinction.
And we can see that those distinctions are even mentioned in John 6 when he talks about
his will being different from the father's when being sent to earth.
We can see those distinctions in the fact that Jesus Christ is saying that he had a
self apart from the father before the world was.
And so I believe that God is made up of three persons that have always existed, always will
exist, and that these three persons are their own selves and yet there is still one God.
Now this paper that I was referencing isn't really going to reference the Bible or scripture,
it's just kind of referencing philosophy and just the different pros and cons of the one-self
theory versus the three-self theory.
But some people would try to claim that, oh, every Christian believes in the one-self theory
and this is the historical view and all Christians have always only ever believed this.
But that's not true and that's obviously clearly gaslighting.
There's always been parties that differed on these views and, you know, most of church
history is just a lens through the Catholic Church or just only looking with Catholic
Church goggles on.
And the Catholic Church has been wrong on virtually every single doctrine you could
ever think of.
In fact, I'm going to be preaching about that on Sunday, about the Catholic Church and how
they're not Christian and really don't believe the Bible and they're pretty much wrong on
virtually every single doctrine you could ever think of.
And it also makes sense that they would also have some error when it comes to the Trinity.
Now again, most Catholics will say they believe in one God, three persons.
I think when you meet the average Catholic, they agree with us, they believe this.
And really, if you just type in the word Trinity in Google, the vast majority is going to pop
up pictures of the Father seated next to the Son.
You can look at paintings and pictures from antiquity of the Father next to the Son.
You look at the article that was presented and they talk about how in the Eastern tradition
that they didn't have this one-self theory.
It wasn't as prevalent.
And in fact, you go to a Greek Orthodox Church, they're going to have a really famous
painting of the Trinity where it's three persons that all look identical sitting next
to each other.
And so, I'm not saying I may endorse that particular picture or the image.
I'm not endorsing a lot of these images because I think that they're wrong and they have Jesus
with long hair or they have all kinds of weird stuff.
I also don't think the Holy Spirit is literally a dove and they usually represent that.
But you can tell that a lot of people have understood God manifest in three persons as
literally being three selves.
You can find a vast majority of people today also agreeing with that.
If you go soul-winding, if you actually talk to people.
Now, admittedly, again, you look at historical documents, you look at a lot of these confessions
and creeds written by Catholics and ex-Catholics, a lot of them might say a lot of weird stuff
or hold or cling to a one-self theory.
But that doesn't necessarily represent the general populace, that doesn't represent history.
That's just a small subset.
The Catholic Church really didn't have really even much opposition for a thousand years
between like 500 AD to the Protestant Reformation.
They weren't letting people have Bibles, they weren't letting people explore other ideas.
And so, most of the church controversy was them trying to distinguish themselves from
modalists because the distinction between modalism and the one-self view of the Trinity
is very nuanced.
It's very difficult to even tell the differences between modalism and the, quote, historical
Catholic version of the Trinity, which I don't even think that's necessarily a fair way to
accurately present it, but even if you did believe that, I don't think that that's necessarily
true.
However, the distinction between what St. Augustine or Thomas Aquinas or some of these
other, quote, church fathers articulated as the Trinity or some of their views, they're
so similar to modalism or Nestorianism or whatever heresy you want to say that they
combated that they were so close that you could see why there was so much conflict because
it was really difficult to distinguish their viewpoints from one another.
Whereas I believe the three-self theory is very clearly distinguishable, it's a lot easier
to separate yourself from some of these heresies of modalism and I believe that it really stands
alone in contrast to a lot of these strange viewpoints and it makes the Bible weird when
you don't really see this relationship between the Father and the Son, when they don't have
their own selves, when they don't have their own wills.
It really rests the Scripture and my reliance and authority is the Bible.
I'm going to believe whatever the Bible says, no matter what my reasoning or logic is or
if that makes sense philosophically.
A lot of the problem with false teachers and false religion is they try to rationalize
the Bible, they try to rationalize God, they create these vain doctrines based on the understanding
of men, doctrines of men, and so you can't trust these creeds, you can't trust the Catholic
Church, you can't trust their traditions, you can't trust their doctrine, I mean the
Catholic Church is wrong on virtually everything.
I don't really look to them to understand who God is, I look to the Bible and I look
to what the Scripture says and I believe if you went to heaven, there's really three.
The Bible says that for there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Ghost and these three are one.
I believe that those are three unique selves all testifying of the same truth of the Gospel
and that there really are three that bear record and so it's important to make sure
that our faith is in the Scripture, not in the philosophy of man.
But I did want to share that document not so much because I'm putting my authority in
it nor do I really even care what it says, I just generally think it's a good explanation
of the views that exist out there and I like the fact that it focuses on the word self
because I think that's a really good way to kind of understand the nuance and the distinction
between different Trinity views that exist.
And you'll notice a lot of Reformed Calvinists and Presbyterians and certain academic Catholics
really advocate for this one self theory and I think that it's definitely wrong, it's heresy
and that we need to combat that and we need to help people understand the right view of
the Trinity.
I know this video went a little long and I know some people necessarily aren't really
interested in the Trinity and that's okay, they have a basic understanding and that's
good enough for them.
But I want to put some more information out for those who are interested in studying the
topic or getting a deeper understanding.
And additionally, I hope to continue making more videos and hopefully we'll bring back
some of our podcasts soon where I'm answering Bible questions, I'm looking forward to another
season of The Baptist Bias that's going to be coming out.
We're actually going to be releasing a new video series that I'm also really excited
about but I'm not going to spoil that just yet.
And so I'm really excited about some of the new information we're going to be releasing.
Make sure to subscribe, check out our Rumble channel as well, Baptist Bias, never know
how long we're going to stay here on YouTube.
You can also follow me on Twitter at BanPastor and I'll just keep putting out more and more
information and hopefully you check into the stuff that you're interested in.
God bless, have a great day.