The objection
Many people do not understand the concepts of being and person. If the Trinity is central, one would apparently first have to master a difficult philosophical doctrine before believing Christ and receiving eternal life.
1. Christ saves, not a passed doctrinal examination
John 6,47 connects eternal life with faith in Christ. Ephesians 2,8–9 describes salvation as God's gift, not the result of human achievement. This also excludes intellectual achievement as merit. No one purchases eternal life through a fully resolved doctrine of divine being.
The Trinity is therefore not an additional work alongside faith. It says who the God who saves is: The Father sends the Son, the Son gives himself, and the Spirit works in believers. Salvation is grounded in the Trinity even if a believer understands these connections only gradually.[1]
2. Truly knowing is not the same as explaining completely
A person can truly trust someone without being able to describe their being exhaustively. With the infinite God, this relationship is still more fundamental. The disciples belonged to Jesus before understanding the full significance of his person, death and resurrection.[2]
John 20,30–31 names faith in Jesus as Christ and Son of God and life in his name as the Gospel's goal. The Gospel therefore leads its readers to knowledge of this Son. It requires no prior mastery of later technical terms.
3. Lack of understanding and conscious denial are different
Lack of conceptual confidence must not immediately be taken to mean lack of faith. An uncertain Christian may mean three bodies by “person” or misunderstand “being” as a fourth person. Their false understanding of a formula is not yet necessarily a conscious rejection of what scripture says about Christ.
A different matter is the claim that the revealed Son is fundamentally not who scripture attests him to be. 1. John 2,22–23 connects denial of the Son with loss of the right relationship to the Father. This entails the seriousness of the question of God; it grants no license to judge every confused person definitively on the basis of one awkward sentence.
4. The answer leads to Christ and then deeper into his Word
We should first show a questioning person whom they believe and what this Lord promises. We then carefully explain why Jesus is true God and true human and why his relationship to the Father presupposes no second deity. Doctrine serves faith and its strengthening.
The stance is therefore neither “Jesus' deity is irrelevant” nor “You must comprehend God's being exhaustively.” God's gift is received in faith; this faith's content is determined by God's self-revelation. Precisely because Christ reliably saves, Christians may learn with certainty to know their Savior ever more accurately.
5. The apostles proclaim the Savior, not a technical examination
The sermons in Acts require no anticipated knowledge of later conciliar concepts. But it does not follow that their proclamation has no Trinitarian content. In Acts 2,32–33 Peter proclaims the risen and exalted Jesus, who receives the promised Spirit from the Father and pours him out. The names stand together in a particular saving action. Later doctrine is intended to explain who acts here; it does not replace the Gospel with an additional intellectual achievement.
Acts 16,31 calls for faith in the Lord Jesus. Faith's object is the real Christ who died for our sins and rose again (1. Corinthians 15,3–4), not passing a terminology test. Nor do the Athanasian Creed's warnings concerning salvation possess authority independent of scripture. Insofar as they are understood as demanding complete metaphysical insight, they must not count as an additional condition of salvation. Lack of technical knowledge and rejection of the revealed Son are different matters. The answer to theological uncertainty is therefore careful instruction; it permits no premature judgment about a person's salvation.
Biblical texts in context
Sources and further study
- John M. Frame, The Doctrine of GodCh. 28, pp. 638–639: the Trinitarian shape of salvation. This article's soteriological conclusions are developed from the biblical texts cited.
- Wayne Grudem, Biblische DogmatikCh. 14, section B: limited but true understanding of the Trinity. Here as conceptual assistance, not as the source of every soteriological position.