Man-Made Religion tries to make God more Understandable

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Ken Temple
The doctrine of the Trinity demonstrates respect for the Bible, rather than trying to make God simple and understandable.

“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 145. (MacMillan Publishing Company, Inc. New York, 1943, 1945, 1952. (Originally in Beyond Personality: The Christian Idea of God, 1944, p. 19)

“The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated by followers of Jesus Christ to safeguard the good news that in Jesus Christ we encounter God face to face. It was not devised to make God less understandable [ “incoherent”, as Muslims and other Unitarians charge] , or to make God so mysterious that the common people have to depend on clergy and theologians to understand it for them, as the JWs [Jehovah’s Witnesses] charge. Instead, the doctrine of the Trinity was developed out of respect for God’s revelation of Himself. [the Scriptures, OT and NT] The Witnesses’ doctrines about God, Christ, and “holy spirit”, on the other hand, were developed not in order to represent the bible’s teaching more faithfully, but to make God understandable and comprehensible. “

“The choice is therefore between believing in the true God as he has revealed himself, mystery and all, or believing in a God that is relatively simple to understand but bears little resemblance to the true God. Trinitarians are willing to live with a God they cannot fully comprehend. As C. S. Lewis put it:

“If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.”

Robert M. Bowman, Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Baker Books, 1989, p. 138-139. [My explanatory comments in brackets.]

Jehovah’s Witnesses (Arianism) and Islam are similar in that they reject the doctrine of the Trinity; which demonstrate that they are man made religions, among other problems of many false doctrines.  Making God easier to understand demonstrates that these (both Islam and Jehovah’s Witnesses) are man-made religions.

See the many other articles on the Doctrine of the Trinity I have written. (click on “The Doctrine of the Trinity” in the category sidebar).

Also see here for other good books on the Doctrine of the Trinity.

About Ken Temple

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. I am a sinner who has been saved by the grace of God alone (Ephesians 2:8-9), through faith alone (Galatians 2:16; Romans 3:28; 4:1-16), in Christ alone (John 14:6). But a true faith does not stay alone, it should result in change, fruit, good works, and deeper levels of repentance and hatred of my own sins of selfishness and pride. I am not better than you! I still make mistakes and sin, but the Lord is working on me, conforming me to His character. (Romans 8:28-29; 2 Corinthians 3:16-18) When I do sin, I hate the sin as it is an affront to God, and seek His forgiveness in repentance. (Mark 1:15; 2 Corinthians 7:7-10; Colossians 3:5-16 ) Praise God for His love for sinners (Romans 5:8), shown by the voluntary coming of Christ and His freely laying down His life for us (John 10:18), becoming flesh/human (John 1:1-5; 1:14; Philippians 2:5-8), dying for sins of people from all nations, tribes, and cultures (Revelation 5:9), on the cross, in history, rising from the dead (Romans 10:9-10; Matthew 28, Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24; John 20-21; 1 Corinthians chapter 15). His resurrection from the dead proved that Jesus is the Messiah, the eternal Son of God, the word of God from eternity past; and that He was all the gospels say He was and that He is truth and the life and the way to salvation. (John 14:6)
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2 Responses to Man-Made Religion tries to make God more Understandable

  1. Sam Shamoun says:
    February 26, 2012 at 8:25 pm

    Hello Brother. I just wanted to inform you that we published new articles on the site today: http://answering-islam.org/New/new.html. You will find 14 rebuttals exposing the lies and distortions of Paul Williams and his cronies. So please pass them on and enjoy!

  2. Pingback: The doctrine of the Trinity – “Trinitas Unitas” & “Unitas Trinitas” | apologeticsandagape

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