Thank you for all the time you’ve put into these pieces. These things have been most helpful in sorting through my own feelings that something is off with the Trinity doctrine. In talking to some, it sometimes seems like it has become a doctrine that produces a feeling of superiority toward those who don’t just accept it because “everyone else does.” Being around that mindset is almost traumatic to someone who has carefully and intentionally pried themselves away from a different exclusivity doctrine in recent years. The Trinity doctrine also has vibes of exclusivity for me. No more organized religion for me. I will worship God alone and follow what is clearly in scripture…not a doctrine that continues to cause confusion and division.
You are quite right about confusion and division. That is the very definition of the devil; he is the liar from the beginning, and there can never be any truth coming from him, only confusion, manipulation, and twisting of the Scriptures, to make a lie appear true. If we, in sincerity, by the direction of the Holy Spirit of God, search the Scriptures with an open heart towards our God, He will show us, without a doubt, what is true, and there will be no shadow of confusion in it. But to get the truth about any matter or question, we must WANT to know the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of God the Father, the Creator of all things.
Hey Jon, thank you for your writing and for this series. I appreciate the honesty of your wrestling. I’ve read all the posts so far and thought this might be a good point to start some dialogue, if you’re interested.
I’m pretty familiar with where you’re coming from. I rejected the Trinity most of my life as a 2x2, first largely out of ignorance, and later because I actively tried to understand and refute it as non-scriptural. At one point I even debated a Christian school headmaster to convince him that our not believing in the Trinity shouldn’t disqualify us from attending (it didn’t work). So being considered a heretic doesn’t particularly frighten me, and I don’t see you as less of a brother because you are wrestling with these questions honestly.
When I began deconstructing, I decided I wasn’t going to believe something simply because I inherited it or because it was considered “orthodox.” I wanted to test things carefully through prayer, experience and study. If that led somewhere non-orthodox, so be it. Ironically, where I eventually landed is not really along denominational lines, but ends up looking fairly orthodox in many respects.
One of the biggest things I took from my experience in the 2x2s is that theology produces communities and cultures. What we believe about God eventually reveals itself in how we treat people, because theology shapes our imagination of reality itself.
One thing I’ve wrestled with is whether certain forms of subordinationist theology can unintentionally create new mediation structures. In the 2x2 world, the workers functionally became spiritual intermediaries, and that concentration of authority led to abuse. I don’t think that was merely accidental. If God remains ultimately distant and inaccessible, and if access to Him comes primarily through exalted representatives, then hierarchy can begin to feel built into reality itself.
That raises questions for me like: why is Jesus exalted, and what makes that exaltation unique? If exaltation comes primarily through obedience, does that risk making proximity to God feel tiered, where the “most obedient” become the closest mediators and examples for everyone else? I’m not asking that rhetorically, I genuinely wonder how different Christologies shape the kinds of communities we build.
What increasingly drew me toward a more classical understanding was the covenant trajectory of Scripture itself. The Bible begins and ends with humanity in unbroken communion with God: Eden and New Jerusalem. Between those bookends is the story of humanity alienated from God’s life, grasping for control, trust fractured, communion broken, mediation necessary.
But throughout covenant history, God does more than merely issue commands. He reveals Himself. The covenant is not just a static legal arrangement but a relationship moving toward restored communion. God meets people where they are and progressively makes His faithful character known.
That’s part of why I eventually came to see Jesus not as a departure from that trajectory but its fulfillment: not merely a messenger pointing to God, but God’s faithful self-revelation within history. In Jesus I see both faithful Israel and faithful humanity: humanity as it was always meant to be in perfect trust and participation with God.
The Father/Son distinction also began making more sense to me in that framework. I don’t think of the Father and Son as competing beings, but almost as transcendence and revelation held together. The Father represents the inexhaustible depth of God beyond our grasp, while the Son is God’s self-revelation within creation and covenant history. Nobody knows the Father except through the Son, but through the Son we truly come to know the heart and character of the Father.
Anyway, sorry for the long message. I’ve appreciated your writing, and I’d genuinely be interested to hear your thoughts.
Haha, thank you! I remembered that comment and thought "One day, I'll write a post about it" and here we are, probably a year later! Thank you for asking the question that led me to thinking about it, because it's a meaningful thing to search.
Jon, while I read your writings, there is a nagging feeling that this is not so much about different beliefs, but about different understanding or even definitions.
I respect trying to simplify things, but we need to remember that God is in fact far greater than we can fully understand. We are also limited by our biases that we may not be aware of.
It is ironic that some of your statements explaining why you don't believe in the "Trinity" are actually reasons why I do.
I honestly feel like it's impossible to define God. And, as I read your thoughts, I realize my definitions of God and the "Trinity" are different than yours. This is obvious when statements you make that disprove the "Trinity" to you are statements that confirm it in my mind.
I have placed "Trinity" in quotations because I feel like it's a label slapped on an understanding of God that is in fact a mystery to us as humans. So if I say I believe in the "Trinity", you automatically assume I believe in YOUR (mis)understanding of the "Trinity". That label automatically makes you jump to conclusions about my beliefs that may not be true. I feel the "Trinity" is all about the essence of God, not the entity of God.
I will end with a few questions.
What was Jesus before our world was created if He wasn't human and wasn't an angel? What was His essence?
Beings aren't defined by a relationship. The "Son of God" is simply his relationship to the Father, it does not define who/what type of being He is.
If you are human and that makes your son human, why is God's son not God?
And if not, what is He that puts him above all?
Why was Jesus worshipped and the Father approved of it? Worshiping anything but God is strictly forbidden throughout the scriptures.
Why do you continually infer that the "Trinity" concept states that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one being? It clearly states that they are separate beings of one essence - the same way we are separate human beings.
Why do you infer that the "Trinity" gives the three individual beings equal authority?
The concept does not deny that the Father is above His Son. But that does not automatically make them of a different essence.
Hey man, thank you again for such a thoughtful comment.
You raise some genuinely important points here, and honestly, I think you’re right that a lot of this comes down to definitions, assumptions, and what we each mean by certain words.
I also appreciate that you’re engaging with the strongest version of what I’m saying rather than just reacting to labels or caricatures.
If you’re okay with it, I’d actually love to write an article interacting with some of the questions you raised here, because I think a lot of people would benefit from seeing this kind of respectful and thoughtful discussion.
Hey Jon, I'd love to read your thoughts on these things. I feel like I'm somewhere in between not believing in the Trinity and thinking it is somewhat helpful in explaining the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I struggle to understand Jesus' nature, because calling Him only human objectively does not fit. I have to do some major mental gymnastics to make that work.
The next article (May 27) I'm writing is on Who Is Jesus, and hopefully that will help, and the next one after that will be "Who is God?", and my plan is to zoom in on each of these and more. I've been working on a "Personal Faith Constitution" for a few months now as a way to document what I presently believe and wrestle with the ideas I hold as well.
God has revealed His identity for thousands of years, clearly and plainly, from the beginning of creation, which we can read of from Genesis through Revelation. I wonder, how can it be said that it's impossible to define God, and that an understanding of God is a mystery? I have been reading the Scriptures of the Word of God for over 70 years, and I have never seen the word trinity or anything similar, and I have never had a problem understanding who God is, or who Jesus Christ is. It is very evident what and who they are, if we forsake our own feeble wisdom, and read and believe the Scriptures by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Before we can understand the truth of it all, we must fall with our faces in the dirt before the Almighty God, and declare that we know nothing of ourselves, only what He wills to reveal to us. May all do thus, and open our hearts to God, who only can reveal the truth.
I agree that God has revealed to us so much of His nature and definitely enough to believe in Him. I do feel that as humans, we can only understand so much.
I believe there is a reason there are "types and shadows" throughout the Bible. It helps us relate and understand to a useful and sufficient degree things that we cannot fully grasp as humans in our own little world.
As I read some of the descriptions in Revelation, I am aware that things are being described in terms that we can relate to, but we cannot fully grasp the reality.
This is also true with the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have been shown enough to believe, but I don't think we will fully understand in this life. You are free to disagree with this.
Please explain who/what the Son of God was before God created humanity and the universe that we live in. He clearly existed long before creation, and He was obviously not human since humans did not exist. He is above the angels. So what type of being is He? Just a random spiritual being?
If you promise to understand the explanation with your heart and it tuned towards God, I will give you an explanation. If you want to understand it with your mind, it won't be worth my time to do it. As I wait for your promise, I'll prayerfully think about it.
Lol. I don't promise to understand anything. I'm doing my best to understand God. He created us with our minds to understand, and I have full confidence He will teach me what I need to know as I seek His truth.
If you can't answer the question just say so. You said you never had a problem understanding who Jesus Christ is so I thought it would be a simple question for you to answer.
Thank you for all the time you’ve put into these pieces. These things have been most helpful in sorting through my own feelings that something is off with the Trinity doctrine. In talking to some, it sometimes seems like it has become a doctrine that produces a feeling of superiority toward those who don’t just accept it because “everyone else does.” Being around that mindset is almost traumatic to someone who has carefully and intentionally pried themselves away from a different exclusivity doctrine in recent years. The Trinity doctrine also has vibes of exclusivity for me. No more organized religion for me. I will worship God alone and follow what is clearly in scripture…not a doctrine that continues to cause confusion and division.
You are quite right about confusion and division. That is the very definition of the devil; he is the liar from the beginning, and there can never be any truth coming from him, only confusion, manipulation, and twisting of the Scriptures, to make a lie appear true. If we, in sincerity, by the direction of the Holy Spirit of God, search the Scriptures with an open heart towards our God, He will show us, without a doubt, what is true, and there will be no shadow of confusion in it. But to get the truth about any matter or question, we must WANT to know the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, the only begotten Son of God the Father, the Creator of all things.
Hey Jon, thank you for your writing and for this series. I appreciate the honesty of your wrestling. I’ve read all the posts so far and thought this might be a good point to start some dialogue, if you’re interested.
I’m pretty familiar with where you’re coming from. I rejected the Trinity most of my life as a 2x2, first largely out of ignorance, and later because I actively tried to understand and refute it as non-scriptural. At one point I even debated a Christian school headmaster to convince him that our not believing in the Trinity shouldn’t disqualify us from attending (it didn’t work). So being considered a heretic doesn’t particularly frighten me, and I don’t see you as less of a brother because you are wrestling with these questions honestly.
When I began deconstructing, I decided I wasn’t going to believe something simply because I inherited it or because it was considered “orthodox.” I wanted to test things carefully through prayer, experience and study. If that led somewhere non-orthodox, so be it. Ironically, where I eventually landed is not really along denominational lines, but ends up looking fairly orthodox in many respects.
One of the biggest things I took from my experience in the 2x2s is that theology produces communities and cultures. What we believe about God eventually reveals itself in how we treat people, because theology shapes our imagination of reality itself.
One thing I’ve wrestled with is whether certain forms of subordinationist theology can unintentionally create new mediation structures. In the 2x2 world, the workers functionally became spiritual intermediaries, and that concentration of authority led to abuse. I don’t think that was merely accidental. If God remains ultimately distant and inaccessible, and if access to Him comes primarily through exalted representatives, then hierarchy can begin to feel built into reality itself.
That raises questions for me like: why is Jesus exalted, and what makes that exaltation unique? If exaltation comes primarily through obedience, does that risk making proximity to God feel tiered, where the “most obedient” become the closest mediators and examples for everyone else? I’m not asking that rhetorically, I genuinely wonder how different Christologies shape the kinds of communities we build.
What increasingly drew me toward a more classical understanding was the covenant trajectory of Scripture itself. The Bible begins and ends with humanity in unbroken communion with God: Eden and New Jerusalem. Between those bookends is the story of humanity alienated from God’s life, grasping for control, trust fractured, communion broken, mediation necessary.
But throughout covenant history, God does more than merely issue commands. He reveals Himself. The covenant is not just a static legal arrangement but a relationship moving toward restored communion. God meets people where they are and progressively makes His faithful character known.
That’s part of why I eventually came to see Jesus not as a departure from that trajectory but its fulfillment: not merely a messenger pointing to God, but God’s faithful self-revelation within history. In Jesus I see both faithful Israel and faithful humanity: humanity as it was always meant to be in perfect trust and participation with God.
The Father/Son distinction also began making more sense to me in that framework. I don’t think of the Father and Son as competing beings, but almost as transcendence and revelation held together. The Father represents the inexhaustible depth of God beyond our grasp, while the Son is God’s self-revelation within creation and covenant history. Nobody knows the Father except through the Son, but through the Son we truly come to know the heart and character of the Father.
Anyway, sorry for the long message. I’ve appreciated your writing, and I’d genuinely be interested to hear your thoughts.
I am the person that replied “Trinity schminity” 😂… still reading your stuff 😊.
Haha, thank you! I remembered that comment and thought "One day, I'll write a post about it" and here we are, probably a year later! Thank you for asking the question that led me to thinking about it, because it's a meaningful thing to search.
Jon, while I read your writings, there is a nagging feeling that this is not so much about different beliefs, but about different understanding or even definitions.
I respect trying to simplify things, but we need to remember that God is in fact far greater than we can fully understand. We are also limited by our biases that we may not be aware of.
It is ironic that some of your statements explaining why you don't believe in the "Trinity" are actually reasons why I do.
I honestly feel like it's impossible to define God. And, as I read your thoughts, I realize my definitions of God and the "Trinity" are different than yours. This is obvious when statements you make that disprove the "Trinity" to you are statements that confirm it in my mind.
I have placed "Trinity" in quotations because I feel like it's a label slapped on an understanding of God that is in fact a mystery to us as humans. So if I say I believe in the "Trinity", you automatically assume I believe in YOUR (mis)understanding of the "Trinity". That label automatically makes you jump to conclusions about my beliefs that may not be true. I feel the "Trinity" is all about the essence of God, not the entity of God.
I will end with a few questions.
What was Jesus before our world was created if He wasn't human and wasn't an angel? What was His essence?
Beings aren't defined by a relationship. The "Son of God" is simply his relationship to the Father, it does not define who/what type of being He is.
If you are human and that makes your son human, why is God's son not God?
And if not, what is He that puts him above all?
Why was Jesus worshipped and the Father approved of it? Worshiping anything but God is strictly forbidden throughout the scriptures.
Why do you continually infer that the "Trinity" concept states that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one being? It clearly states that they are separate beings of one essence - the same way we are separate human beings.
Why do you infer that the "Trinity" gives the three individual beings equal authority?
The concept does not deny that the Father is above His Son. But that does not automatically make them of a different essence.
Ty
Hey man, thank you again for such a thoughtful comment.
You raise some genuinely important points here, and honestly, I think you’re right that a lot of this comes down to definitions, assumptions, and what we each mean by certain words.
I also appreciate that you’re engaging with the strongest version of what I’m saying rather than just reacting to labels or caricatures.
If you’re okay with it, I’d actually love to write an article interacting with some of the questions you raised here, because I think a lot of people would benefit from seeing this kind of respectful and thoughtful discussion.
Hey Jon, I'd love to read your thoughts on these things. I feel like I'm somewhere in between not believing in the Trinity and thinking it is somewhat helpful in explaining the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I struggle to understand Jesus' nature, because calling Him only human objectively does not fit. I have to do some major mental gymnastics to make that work.
Ty
The next article (May 27) I'm writing is on Who Is Jesus, and hopefully that will help, and the next one after that will be "Who is God?", and my plan is to zoom in on each of these and more. I've been working on a "Personal Faith Constitution" for a few months now as a way to document what I presently believe and wrestle with the ideas I hold as well.
God has revealed His identity for thousands of years, clearly and plainly, from the beginning of creation, which we can read of from Genesis through Revelation. I wonder, how can it be said that it's impossible to define God, and that an understanding of God is a mystery? I have been reading the Scriptures of the Word of God for over 70 years, and I have never seen the word trinity or anything similar, and I have never had a problem understanding who God is, or who Jesus Christ is. It is very evident what and who they are, if we forsake our own feeble wisdom, and read and believe the Scriptures by the revelation of the Holy Spirit. Before we can understand the truth of it all, we must fall with our faces in the dirt before the Almighty God, and declare that we know nothing of ourselves, only what He wills to reveal to us. May all do thus, and open our hearts to God, who only can reveal the truth.
I agree that God has revealed to us so much of His nature and definitely enough to believe in Him. I do feel that as humans, we can only understand so much.
I believe there is a reason there are "types and shadows" throughout the Bible. It helps us relate and understand to a useful and sufficient degree things that we cannot fully grasp as humans in our own little world.
As I read some of the descriptions in Revelation, I am aware that things are being described in terms that we can relate to, but we cannot fully grasp the reality.
This is also true with the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have been shown enough to believe, but I don't think we will fully understand in this life. You are free to disagree with this.
Please explain who/what the Son of God was before God created humanity and the universe that we live in. He clearly existed long before creation, and He was obviously not human since humans did not exist. He is above the angels. So what type of being is He? Just a random spiritual being?
Thank you.
If you promise to understand the explanation with your heart and it tuned towards God, I will give you an explanation. If you want to understand it with your mind, it won't be worth my time to do it. As I wait for your promise, I'll prayerfully think about it.
Lol. I don't promise to understand anything. I'm doing my best to understand God. He created us with our minds to understand, and I have full confidence He will teach me what I need to know as I seek His truth.
If you can't answer the question just say so. You said you never had a problem understanding who Jesus Christ is so I thought it would be a simple question for you to answer.