Doddridge and Mayne on the Absurdity of the Trinity

 

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Doddridge: If any believer in the so-called tripersonal, or triune Deity, can but impart to us in plain, intelligible language, what He conceives the Trinity to be; surely...some among us might be able to apprehend his meaning; but it appears to me, that our Trinitarian friends are in a complete maze; and by their abortive attempts to elucidate, only add to the puzzling confusion of perfectly unintelligible names and expressions. In preparing for this Discussion, I met with a variety of Trinitarian epithets, a few of which I noted down, and shall now read them to the Meeting, as specimens of folly in departing from the language of commonsense. The Trinity is, by trinitarian writers, said to be--

Three substances, three divine hypostases, three essences—a trinity of divine personalities, principles, and perfections—three divine persons in a sense metaphorical-a unity in pluralities, and pluralities in unity-three priorities and co-equalities--God distinguished according to three considerations-a triunal distinction-three distinct relatives or relations-three different modes of subsistence-three divine intelligences, existences, beings-three impersonations existing under finite conditions --three somewhats--

together with a long list of equally unapprehensible, not to say nonsensical and ludicrous epithets and expressions, anything but creditable to those who employ them, since men of sense canuot form any clear conceptions of such idiosyncratic vagaries.

Rev. J. Mayne: As a Unitarian Minister, I would briefly say, many of us are of opinion, that the doctrine of the Trinity is altogether at variance with the Bible, with Reason, and with Commonsense; that it is quite as reasonable, and certainly less mischievous, to believe in Transubstantiation, in Priestly absolution, or, in Satanic ubiquity, than to believe that Three distinct persons can be One, or, that One supreme God can admit of participation in his Godhead. We feel it an insult to our understanding, for anyone to attempt persuading us, that a Son can be as old as his Father; that any Being can be his own Father, Himself, and his own Son; that a Being who was Born into life, Lived, and Died, was, or could have been, Uncreated, Eternal, Immortal—such incongruities and contradictions and impossibilities, we Unitarians tread under our feet, worshiping and acknowledging but One God, as taught in the Jewish scriptures, and but One Father, as revealed to us by our Brother Jesus, according to the Christian scriptures—and we look upon and denounce all other Gods as Idols!

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