...There are three distinct objections to the doctrine of the Trinity.
1st. It is unreasonable,
2nd. It is unscriptural!
3rd. It is impossible!
The claim that there are "three persons in the Godhead" is the invention of men whose aim was only to make religion complex, intricate, and mysterious. Jesus never said anything about three persons in the Godhead. If it were true, He was one of the persons and must have known it. He was silent as to the composition of the "Godhead." Every text that might be said to support such a teaching is ambiguous, while there are numerous texts to prove that He believed in one Heavenly Father, one only God!
"As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things."
"My Father is greater than I."
"The words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works."
And He taught us to pray to "our Father."
The doctrine of the Trinity invites the ridicule of many earnest, thinking men. Here is a specimen of this from the pen of a man alike distinguished for intelligence, honesty, and wit. "According to the faith, each of these three persons is God. Christ is his own Father and his own son. The Holy Ghost is neither father nor son, but both. The son was begotten by the father, but existed before he was begotten, just the same before as after. Christ is just as old as his father and the father is just as young as the son. The Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, but was equal to the Father and Son before he proceeded, that is to say before he existed, but he is of the same age of the other two, and is their equal in power and glory. So it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and that these three Gods make one God.
"According to the celestial multiplication table, once one is three, and three times one is one, and according to theological subtraction, if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar, if we add two to one, we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be, more perfectly idiotic or absurd than the dogma of the Trinity.
"How is it possible to prove the existence of the Trinity?
"Is it possible for a human being who has been born but once, to comprehend, or to imagine the existence of three beings, each of whom is equal to the three?
"Think of one of these beings as the father of one, and think of that one as half human and all God, and think of the third as having proceeded from the other two and then think of all three as one, think that after the father begot the son the father was still alone, and after the Holy Ghost proceeded from the father and the son, the father was still alone, because there never was and never will be but one God.
"At this point absurdity has reached its limit."
Trinity is inevitably a target for just such derision; and the great trouble is, people are apt to infer that this is ridiculing religion, when in fact it only applies to an absurd dogma.
If the doctrine of the Trinity belonged to the Chinese or the Hindus, we should consider this quotation as droll and amusing, but, at the same time, logical and correct. But, as it is the property of Christian theology, it will be characterized as sacrilege, or blasphemy, or infidelity, or all three together, according to the bias of the reader.
Theology, however, does not appraise Trinity quite as highly as an asset, as it did twenty-five years ago, It is steadily decreasing in value and before many more years have passed, it will be placed in the divinity museum, along with ghosts and goblins, witchcraft and mythology...
Complex and inharmonious dogmas, doctrines and small theories, are only stumbling-blocks to the heathen, and obstacles to the spread of Christianity. The pure, simple, unembellished teachings of Jesus—goodness, kindness, and love—would be far better.
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