Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. (1Jo 4:1-3)

The charge to “be Bereans” is thus often used in our day to challenge Christians to test the doctrines we are taught against the inerrant, infallible word of God revealed to us in the Bible. If a given doctrine passes the test, then we should receive it with all eagerness. If it does not, then we should reject or amend it, insofar as it errs against scripture.

The present author applied this call to the doctrine of the trinity, and found that there is much to appreciate in the doctrine, and many places where it seems to align with the teachings of scripture. However, I also found plenty of reasons to seek a better theological system that can better explain the various passages involved. Trinity Berean thus provides a friendly, biblical critique of this well-accepted doctrine, together with an alternative theological system that attempts to build upon the good parts of the trinity while resolving some of the seeming conflict it has with other biblical doctrines.

For those who don’t have hours to comb through all of the content on Trinity Berean, I’ll provide an overview of the reasoning that led me to disagree with the trinity. First, I’ll discuss the issues I see with trinitarian christology (the study of Christ, in particular how Jesus’ divine and human natures interact). Second, I’ll discuss the impact of my christological differences on the nature of God.

Because every viewpoint needs a name, I’ll refer to mine as “the pattern.” I chose that name because the resulting model of the godhead provides a useful pattern which explains God’s design decisions in various aspects of creation — in particular his design of marriage as two persons who are one, rather than three.

My primary issue with the trinity concerns how it frames the sonship of Christ as an aspect of his divine nature, rather than his human nature. Like trinitarians, I believe that Jesus is truly God and truly man, possessing all attributes of both natures simultaneously. However, trinitarians believe that when scripture refers to Jesus as “the son of God” it is describing his divine nature, as a person in the godhead known as “the Son.” I on the other hand believe that scripture makes the most sense when you view the title “son of God” as a description of his human nature.

The reason for this shift is that scripture uses the term “son of God” to describe many different people, including Adam (Luk 3:38), and the everyday Christian (Gal 3:26-27). Scripture then develops what that term means through our connection to Christ, namely that we now have the same kind of relationship with the Father that Jesus has. First, Jesus is called our brother, because God is the Father of both Jesus and the Christian (Heb 2:10-14, Jhn 20:17) Second, because we are sons of God, we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Rom 8:17)

So because of this strong parallel that scripture draws between Christ’s sonship toward the Father and our own, the most natural way of understanding his sonship toward the Father is that it is a property of his created, human nature. Adam was not divine, yet he related to God as his Father. We Christians are not divine, yet we relate to God as our Father. In the same way, Jesus, while remaining truly God incarnate (Mat 1:23), nevertheless has a relationship with God as a human being, viewing God as his Father in the same way that Christians view God as our Father. This is why he can speak to or about God as a distinct being, such as when he was on the cross crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mar 15:34), or when he compared his sonship toward the Father with that of the disciples after the resurrection (Jhn 20:17).

The doctrine of sonship in scripture corroborates this. To be someone’s son generally means that you are a creature who is created in the image of that person (an important exception to this would be adoption, sonship according to role rather than natural descent). This was true of Adam toward God, and it was also true of Adam’s children toward himself.

This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. (Gen 5:1-3)

Not only are all humans created in the image of God; we are also in the image of Man/Adam (1Co 15:47-49). Thus when Paul writes to the Colossians saying that the Son is “the image of the invisible God,” we are to interpret that through all of the context of what the rest of the Bible describes as image-bearing. Namely, we are to understand that the Son is a creature, who is created in the image of God, and within whom the fullness of the godhead dwelt bodily (Col 1:15-20, 2:9). Although the Son here and elsewhere is described as doing many divine things (especially creating the world), the title itself, when understood in the greater context of scripture and theology, is a clear reference to Jesus’ created, human nature, not his divine nature.

Hopefully the above overview gives you a sense for where I agree with trinitarian thought, and where I differ. It’s inevitable of course that some tenets will sound reasonable to orthodox readers, and others will seem strange. And certainly there are many non-critical tenets that serve a corroborative role, rather than a core foundation of patternist thinking. If you see a problem in one, consider whether or not it undermines the whole system, or just that one tenet. Be both a pattern and a trinity berean; our goal should be to find the truth, not to prop up one system of theology at all costs.

My encouragement to you would be to consider each concept on its biblical merits, not on how well it aligns with modern theology (which itself differs significantly from early trinitarian thought). Whatever conclusion you reach, be a true berean, applying the same standard of biblical scrutiny to both viewpoints, without partiality in either direction.

In addition to the core argument, I’m developing a growing set of in-depth commentaries on key passages, as well as a library of answers to objections. If you’re interested in going deep, you can start working through the core articles, or check out these additional resources on Trinity Berean.