The Trinity or a Literal Father and Son: Which Does the Bible Teach?

Here’s a question every Christian should be willing to ask: if all you had was the Bible, with no creeds, no councils, and no catechism, would you ever come up with one God in three coequal persons sharing one substance? Or would you come away believing in a Father in heaven, his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, working together as one? I think the answer is obvious. And it’s telling that it took emperors, councils, and threats of exile to get everyone to agree on the creed.

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The fair test: draw a line down the middle

Try this. Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left, write every verse that shows the Father and the Son as two: one sending and one sent, one praying and one answering, one sitting and one at his right hand. On the right, write every verse that says God is one being in three persons.

The left column fills up fast. The right column stays empty, because no verse says it. That isn’t just my opinion. The Catholic Encyclopedia, defending the doctrine, admits: “In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together” (“The Blessed Trinity”). The word itself first shows up around AD 180, a century and a half after the Resurrection.

So when someone says Latter-day Saints “aren’t biblical” on the Godhead, ask them for just one verse for the right-hand column. Not a verse that names three, a verse that says one being, three persons. (I’ve walked through why stringing proof-texts together doesn’t get you there in Proof-Texting the Trinity.)

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The verses used for the Trinity

To be fair, let’s look at the verses that get cited the most.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Matthew 28:19 (KJV)

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.

2 Corinthians 13:14 (KJV)

Both verses name three. Latter-day Saints baptize in those same three names. What neither verse says is that the three are one being, or one substance, or coequal. Naming three together proves there are three. It doesn’t prove they’re one being.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:1 (KJV)

John 1:1 is a favorite, but look at the middle clause: the Word was with God. You can’t be with yourself. And a few verses later John tells us who the Word is: “the only begotten of the Father” (John 1:14). The Word is divine, and he is the Son of a Father. That’s exactly what we teach.

And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Matthew 3:16–17 (KJV)

The baptism of Jesus is supposed to be a Trinity proof. Read it again. The Son is in the water, the Spirit descends, and the Father speaks from heaven about his Son. Three in three places, at the same moment. That’s not one being. That’s a Father, a Son, and the Holy Ghost.

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A real Father and a real Son

The Bible doesn’t treat “Father” and “Son” as job titles that one being switches between. It uses them the way you and I would: a Father who begets, loves, sends, and commands, and a Son who obeys.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 3:16 (KJV)

Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Hebrews 1:3 (KJV)

The Son is “the express image of his person.” An image is of someone else. And he “sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high,” which takes two. Two verses later Hebrews quotes the Father: “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Hebrews 1:5).

The Son does what he sees the Father do

Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

John 5:19 (KJV)

Jesus says “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17), and then explains that he does what he sees the Father do. That’s a Son learning from and following his Father. Even the power to lay down his life and take it again, he says, came as a charge: “This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:18).

The Son prays, submits, and doesn’t know the hour

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

Matthew 26:39 (KJV)

Two wills, one yielding to the other. Who was Jesus praying to in Gethsemane, himself? And when he talks about his Second Coming: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32). If the Son and the Father are one being, one being both knows and doesn’t know the same thing at the same time.

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“My Father is greater than I”

Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

John 14:28 (KJV)

Now set that next to the Athanasian Creed, one of the three classic creeds of historic Christianity. It says that in the Trinity “none is greater, or less than another,” and that “the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal” (Schaff, Creeds of Christendom).

Jesus says his Father is greater. The creed says nobody is greater. Both can’t be right, and I’m going with Jesus. The usual reply is that Jesus only meant “in his humanity.” But the Bible never adds that qualifier. Critics have to add it for him, and it doesn’t survive the next section anyway.

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Still Father and Son after the resurrection

If the Father and Son only looked distinct because Jesus was in mortality, that should all end after the Resurrection. It doesn’t.

Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

John 20:17 (KJV)

The resurrected Jesus calls the Father “my God.” Then Peter preaches, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses” (Acts 2:32). God raised Jesus. And years after the Ascension, Stephen sees them both:

But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

Acts 7:55–56 (KJV)

Stephen, full of the Holy Ghost, sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at his right hand. And Paul looks all the way to the end of the world:

And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

1 Corinthians 15:28 (KJV)

Even at the end, after everything is put under the Son, the Son himself is subject to the Father. That’s not a temporary arrangement for mortality. That’s who they are.

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What “one” means

And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

Mark 12:29 (KJV)

Jesus quotes the Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4, and we believe it. The question is what kind of “one.” Paul answers it plainly:

But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

1 Corinthians 8:6 (KJV)

Paul’s “one God” is “the Father,” and Jesus is the “one Lord” alongside him. (More on that verse in “You’re Polytheists”.) And Jesus defines the oneness himself in his great prayer:

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

John 17:21 (KJV)

He prays that his disciples will be one “even as we are one” (John 17:22). Nobody thinks the apostles were supposed to become one being. They were supposed to be one in heart, purpose, and glory, the same way the Father and Son are one. So when a critic quotes “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), read it the way Jesus explained it. (I go through the Hebrew and Greek in “One” in the Bible.)

Jesus even counts himself and his Father as two separate witnesses: “It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me” (John 8:17–18). If they were one being, that’s one witness, and his argument falls apart. See the oneness of God topic page for more.

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The Holy Ghost: sent, and not speaking of himself

But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

John 15:26 (KJV)

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.

John 16:13 (KJV)

The Holy Ghost is sent by the Son, proceeds from the Father, testifies of the Son, and “shall not speak of himself” but speaks what he hears. He’s a “he,” not an “it,” and he’s clearly distinct from both. Revelation to Joseph Smith says the same thing plainly: “the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit” (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22). A sent messenger who speaks what he hears is not what the creeds mean by “coequal.”

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So where did the Trinity come from?

If it isn’t in the Bible, where did it come from? History, not revelation. The Greek word trias first appears in Theophilus of Antioch around AD 180, and the Latin trinitas shows up later in Tertullian (Catholic Encyclopedia). Over the next century and a half, Christians argued about how the Father and Son relate. Some, like Arius, made the Son a created being. Others, the modalists, said Father, Son, and Spirit were just three modes of one person.

Then in 325 the emperor Constantine called the bishops to Nicaea. His own letter says his “first object” was “that unity of faith, sincerity of love, and community of feeling … might be preserved” (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.17). Before the council, he had written to the two sides calling the dispute “small and very insignificant questions” (2.71). The goal was unity. Once the creed was drafted, the Catholic Encyclopedia says, “the alternative proposed was subscription or banishment.” Arius and his followers were exiled (“Arianism”). (Full story: Nicaea 325.)

In 381 another emperor, Theodosius, called the Council of Constantinople, and afterward decreed that churches be restored to bishops “who confessed the equal Divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Catholic Encyclopedia). The Athanasian Creed, with its “coequal,” came later still, and most scholars agree Athanasius didn’t write it (Catholic Encyclopedia).

Truth isn’t found in compromise, conformity is. An emperor wanted one formula everyone would sign, and he got it. That’s not the same thing as God revealing who he is. If you have to sign a creed or face exile, the creed is doing the work the scriptures couldn’t. (See do creeds define who’s Christian?)

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Philippians 2: equal with God, exalted by God

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

Philippians 2:6–7 (KJV)

Critics love verse 6: “equal with God.” But notice it says the Son is equal with God, the same way John 1:1 says the Word was with God. Then keep reading:

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

Philippians 2:9 (KJV)

God exalted him. One exalts, one is exalted. A Son can share his Father’s divine nature completely, in the “form of God,” and still be a different person from his Father, the same way a son shares his father’s nature without being his father. Same divine nature isn’t one substance. (I cover the verses critics cite on that in Same Divine Nature Isn’t Consubstantial.)

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Yes, Latter-day Saints believe Jesus is God

Let me be clear, because critics love to say we don’t believe in the divinity of Christ. We do. The title page of the Book of Mormon says it was written “to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God” (title page). Jesus is Jehovah, the Creator, and our Redeemer. We just don’t believe he is his own Father. (See do Latter-day Saints deny Jesus is God?)

We believe in a Father who has a glorified body, a Son who is “the express image of his person,” and the Holy Ghost, one Godhead, perfectly united. That’s the Godhead you find when you read the Bible without a creed in your other hand. (More at the Godhead topic page and does God have a body?)

So which is more biblical, the Trinity or a literal Father and Son? Draw your line down the middle and count. Then ask the people who say we aren’t Christian why their right-hand column is still empty.

Sources

• King James Version, via churchofjesuschrist.org: Matthew 3, Matthew 26, Matthew 28, Mark 12, Mark 13, John 1, John 5, John 14, John 17, John 20, Acts 7, 1 Corinthians 8, 1 Corinthians 15, Philippians 2, Hebrews 1
• Book of Mormon, title page and Doctrine and Covenants 130:22
• Catholic Encyclopedia (1912), “The Blessed Trinity” (New Advent)
• Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), “Arianism” (New Advent)
• Catholic Encyclopedia (1908), “First Council of Constantinople” (New Advent)
• Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), “Athanasian Creed” (New Advent)
• The Athanasian Creed, in Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, vol. 2 (CCEL)
• Eusebius, Life of Constantine, Book II (ch. 71) and Book III (ch. 17), NPNF2 vol. 1 (New Advent)

• Featured image and in-post graphics: original graphics by thebookofmormon.ai (no photographs or likenesses of real people).