The Absurdity of the Trinity Doctrine By G. W. Hyer (1852)

 

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The Absurdity of the Trinity Doctrine By G. W. Hyer (1852)

“O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three persons and one God; have mercy upon us miserable sinners."
To be sure in this we have these three personal Gods called one God; but I do not see how that helps the matter. The contradiction is not a proof, but a disgrace to the functionary uttering it, whoever he may be. Suppose I say, “John is a man, James is a man, and George is a man. These three are three persons; but, after all, they are but one man." How do I prove this? Very simply, “I call them a trinity." But does calling them a trinity make them less than three separate and distinct men?

 Certainly not.

I don't think it will require, therefore, an argument to establish my first affirmation, that the Church worships three Gods. To be sure she calls them a Trinity likewise. But what does the word Trinity signify? It signifies three.. To say, then, that three are but one, is nonsense.

You reply to me by saying, that, in its application to so great a mystery as the Godhead, it may have a more recondite meaning. I don't understand how that can be. Your calling a thing a mystery don't make it so; nor does it justify its application to that simple idea of the oneness of God which is appreciable by every mind. To put forth a mystery as an object of worship, looks very much, in this age, like a humbug. But this mystery is such only because it is an absurdity. You don't profess to understand it, and the Church don't profess to understand it; and yet 't is a damnable heresy not to believe it. Had the Church honestly said to her members, “There is a dogma which we find in an ancient creed, which, indeed, is quite inexplicable and very strange. You may receive it or not, as it may approve itself to your judgment. We retain it, because we find it amid the theological heritage transmitted to us from that venerable era, and so conserve it." Then men would have felt very easy about it; and although there might have been found some bookworm, or archæological moth, or erudite Puseyite, to inscribe it upon his missal, no wrangling could have come of it. But to make it a cardinal doctrine, — this was very stupid.

I don't enter upon this argument here, - so much out of place, - because I fear the Church's anathema.

She may go on damning people to the end of time, and I doubt that it will turn one hair black or white. I add it merely to justify what I had previously said upon the subject. Nor would I presume to treat her with disrespect. She is herself the very impersonation of respectability. Wealth, titles, orders, successions, mitres, crosiers, heraldic emblazonings of pedigree, lordly assumptions, and kingly pride, — all awe the observant world into a reverent silence. She moves in the pomp of processions and surplices to the sound of organs; she ascends the throne of spiritual dominion, and thence issues her edicts stamped with the seal of Apostolic authority. Her enemies wither beneath her rebuke, and steal away into oblivion.

Let us say no more about the dignity of human nature. Man is vile. Human depravity is the doctrine with which she represses his rising energies, and dooms him to abstinence and obedience. Mortify the flesh. Abase the intellect. Subdue the reason.
Cease to think. Hear the Church. What a tender mother, to take all this care upon herself! She would perpetuate our infancy, that she might always have the pleasure of nursing us.

The more helpless we are, the more tender her concern. To be weak is to be dependent. She knows this. And to be dependent is to become a slave. Freedom is error. Liberty is licentiousness. Private judgment leads down to hell.

If one could reconcile this to one's conscience, reason. would it be better? Let those who have gone over to Rome answer. I don't mean by this that the Church is Roman; she is only Catholic. She does not possess the power; she only grasps at it, and abides in the disposition. She affects republicanism in her organization, and regality in her tone. A pope is infallible, but a bishop is only divine.

I must stop here, or you will think I am becoming disrespectful. Such is not my intention. And I am inclined to believe that Churchmen will look upon these remarks as rather complimentary than otherwise. The terms in which you describe a proud man only make him prouder.

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