Many statements of faith end their description of the Trinity Doctrine with a statement that the Trinity Doctrine is hard to understand and we must accept it as a mystery. Here is a sample (with my emphasis added): “The Trinity can be understood in some of its manifestations, but in its essential nature it transcends the understanding of the human mind and remains a mystery.”

This sounds very high-minded, but is a total deception. The problem is that the Trinity Doctrine is a product of the human mind, so how can it “transcend” the understanding of the human mind? Theologians like to say that if we find the Trinity Doctrine difficult to understand, it cannot possibly be their fault—it must be due to the limitations of the human mind (i.e., the limitations of anyone who disagrees with them).

As stated earlier, the word “Trinity” never appears in the Bible, nor is there any word in the Bible with a corresponding meaning. The phrase “God the Father” appears many times in the Bible, but never do the phrases “God the Son” or “God the Holy Spirit” occur. The combination of “God the Father” and “God the Son” and “God the Holy Spirit” into a single unit is referred to by Trinitarians as ”the Godhead”; but nowhere in scripture does that term or any term like it appear. In fact, the term “Godhead” implies some entity even greater than God the Father, which would be considered blasphemy by the biblical writers.

 If the Trinity Doctrine is truly a mystery in the sense of a divine mystery, then it must come from divine revelation, not from human thinking. But that is obviously not the case, since neither the concept of the Trinity nor many of its components occur in scripture. To call the Trinity Doctrine a “mystery” is to imply that it is something we must accept without understanding it—ostensibly because it is a divine mystery. But the whole concept of the Trinity and its tortured explanations is a concept from human thinking, not from divine revelation.

To give an example by way of illustration: The subject of predestination is hard to understand and controversial in theological debates, but we know it is a legitimate subject of discussion because both the word and the subject occur in scripture. Predestination is considered a mystery to many people; but it can legitimately be called a divine mystery because it is a subject of divine revelation—it is something God has told us about in scripture and wants us to know about.  (Peter and John spoke of God doing “whatever thy hand and thy plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28), and Paul spoke of “those whom he [God] predestined” (Romans 8:30).)

Such is not the case with the Trinity Doctrine; God has not said anything about the Trinity Doctrine. So how did the Trinity Doctrine become a hallowed, sanctified subject at the top of every church’s statement of faith?? Our shepherds are deceiving their flocks!