I found it very difficult to strip the un-Biblical doctrines away from the Christianity that I had been taught. It was disorienting. It did not feel right. But I guess that feelings aren't a good basis for understanding, since my previous beliefs do not feel right now. I hope and pray that you will earnestly seek God's truth. It might feel comfortable to rely of the "traditions of our fathers", but Jesus said that this was a poor choice. Look in the Bible and look for confirmation in the writings of the Early Church Fathers (link to these writings below). I fear that the information presented here is inadequate to give a person a fair chance at finding the truth...I apologize. In the future I will attempt to expand on this information--more along the lines of the format by which I arrived at my understanding. Please bolster what I've written by checking all the links on this page for additional information. I was fortunate to be guided initially by two books (The Making of a Tradition, by Mark M. Mattison, and The Doctrine of the Trinity, Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound, by Anthony F. Buzzard and Charles F. Hunting--look for the links to Mattison and Buzzard on this page). Additional helpful resources were a Greek and Hebrew interlinear Bible, lexicons, a Trinitarian systematic theology text, and access to an Early Church Writings website (linked below). May God bless you in your search for His truth.

Biblical Truth:

The truth is surprisingly straightforward and easy to understand. The doctrines of Mainstream Christianity are difficult because they have falsely adopted the Philosophy of Plato (circa 400 BC).  His beliefs where the most popular in Greece and Rome when Christianity made its debut into those regions.  Early Christianity battled the influence of Plato.  But the adherents to Platonic philosophy came to dominate the Church from the 3rd century AD to the present.  The vast majority of "Christian" doctrines are adopted from Plato's Philoshophy. 

The most difficult aspect of bringing the truth to light are the gymnastics required to refute the tricky semantics of Platonic Metaphysics utilized to link them to Biblical verses.  This forms the "proof" which the Traditional "Christian" Orthodoxy uses to bolster it's false doctrines.

Were these Traditional doctrines handed down by the Apostles outside the Bible?

Read the writings of the first generation of disciples of the Apostles: Timothy, Barnabus, Polycarp, etc. They were taught and counseled by the Apostles for several years. Their writings can be found at the Early Church Fathers site provided by Wheaton College.  You won't find any mention of Jesus as being God or the Holy Spirit as a separate God from God the Father. These concepts evolve in the later writers who came into Christianity from pagan backgrounds (not Jewish), and were further removed from the Apostles. 

God doesn't torture unbelievers in Hell for all eternity. 

Pagan Roman beliefs, not the Bible, gave us this concept. Remember that the Romans believed that the gods lived on Mt. Olympus, above the clouds, and that Hades, under the ground, was the place of eternal torment.  Scripture does describe punishment for the unbeliever, but it is nowhere described as being forever.

• To be tortured for all eternity requires eternal life. The Bible does not say that the wages of sin is eternal torture! Rather it says "the wages of sin is death." People don't have eternal souls. That concept came from Greek philosophy. The Greeks believed that the 'real' self was an eternal soul which existed independently of the body, and therefore lived eternally. This is nowhere taught in the Bible. 
• The Bible says that the soul doesn't exist independent of a body. When people die, they are unconscious until resurrected by God. Only those chosen by God receive eternal life.
• When God destroys the unbelievers, they are gone--body and soul. This is the "second death".

God doesn't cause evil in the World.

People ask:  "If God is good why does he cause or allow suffering in the World?".  It is often taught that if your baby or loved one is killed that this is done by God. 

People are given free will by God--free to exercise evil.  Also, this is not the Garden of Eden.  We are not living in Paradise...bad things happen, but every bad thing is not necessarily in God's will.  Remember that Adam and Eve chose to gain the knowledge of Good and Evil.  So we went from an environment which contained only Good, to one that allowed us to know about both.

Each event in our lives is not pre-determined by God. 

We have been given Free Will by God.  When God directs us to choose to do Good, we are really the ones making the choice.  The Greek Philosophy of Plato has a doctrine called Fatalism.  This doctrine says that our Fate is pre-determined, and that we are powerless to change the events of our lives.  This concept has been adopted by Mainstream Christianity.  It often makes Christians feel helpless to act in their lives:  "Since everything is already predetermined, and we are powerless to change it, why try to assert control over the events in your life?".

Christians are not manipulated like puppets through possession by the Holy Spirit.  

Many Christians feel absolutely powerless to strive to accomplish anything. They fervently pray for the Holy Spirit to "move in them" rather than exercise their God-given will and self-determination to enact God's instructions for our lives. The Bible simply tells us to act. Nowhere does it tell us to wait around for the Holy Spirit to take us over and act on our behalf. 

Where did the Trinitarian doctrine come from? Is it apparent from the Biblical text?

Start with Romans. Paul presents Christianity in an organized and comprehensive manner. Read it as if you didn't already know of the doctrine of the Trinity:   (History of the Trinity doctrine)

• Would Romans cause you to determine that there is a "Trinity" composed of three co-equal persons joined together in one God?
• See how thoroughly important concepts such as "death through the Law" and "salvation through Christ" are developed and explained, and how the equally important doctrine of the Trinity is so completely absent from any of Paul's writings.
• The concept that God is composed of three persons would have been confounding and explosively controversial to a Jew such as Paul. If God had caused him to understand this to be truth, surely he would explain it here in Romans--since he expends much effort on many matters which are so less important.
• Orthodox Christianity teaches that a belief in the Trinity is required for Salvation.  Yet this is specified nowhere in Scripture.  Neither does it say that there is a hidden requirement which must be searched out in Scripture.  Over and over, it specifies the simple choices which result in Eternal Life.  None of these is belief in the Trinity, or anything resembling a three-in-one concept, or belief in Jesus as God Almighty.  Read the many sermons in the book of Acts.  These sermons exhort and instruct their audiences in the requirements for Salvation.   Many were said to have been saved by these instructions.  Yet they do not contain an instruction to believe in a multi-person God, or in Jesus as God.

The Bible testifies to a single God as a single person:

• God is referred to as the one and only God over 11,000 times in the Old Testament.
• God the Father is referred to as ho theos, the one God, more than 1300 times in the New Testament. 
• Jesus is twice referred to as God: "And Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'" Jn 20:28 NKJV.  "Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God." Jn 5:18 NKJV.
• Satan is once referred to as God:  "whose minds the god of this age have blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them." 2 Cor 4:4 NKJV.
• Moses is once referred to as God: "So the Lord said to Moses:  'See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet.'" Ex 7:1 NKJV (note that as is added by the translaters).
• The Apostle Paul wrote: "yet for us there is only one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live." 1 Cor 8:6 NKJV
• It is well established that the Old Testament teaches--and the Jews thoroughly believed--that God the Father alone was God. If the New Testament is supposed to be telling us that God is now sharing the "godhead" with other personalities, we would expect to see this astonishing new doctrine spelled out by the Apostles. Less unsettling changes are spelled out exhaustively in the New Testament: the change in the status of the Law for the saved; the need for a Savior; the requirement for the Savior to die and be resurrected. Yet the explanation of the Messiah being God incarnate is strangely absent.  
• "Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Deut 6:4, Mk 12:29 NKJV
• "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," 1 Tim 2:3-5 NIV

Jesus is a man--the Messiah of the Old Testament--not God.

Adam was the first man; Jesus is the "second Adam": a man also. He is a very special man, created by God for the express purpose of giving people spiritual fulfillment and eternal life in paradise. These truths are clearly stated and repeated throughout the New Testament. 

Did the Apostles mean to be ambiguous and vague?

• Were these Traditional doctrines meant to be interpreted from the obscure and ambiguous verses that they are based on? Were the New Testament writers trying to hide the truth from us? 

There is nothing in the New Testament which indicates an intention to obscure major doctrinal issues from the reader. Yet several major doctrines of Traditional Christian belief are held by the most obscure threads of interpretation. The question arises as to why Traditional Christianity chooses to base many doctrines on the ambiguous verses rather than on the abundant number of clear and explicit verses which point to a different understanding.

Where did these doctrines come from if not from the text of the Bible?

These widely-held doctrines have been imbued with the mythological belief systems which come straight out of the pagan Greek and Roman cultures which Christianity was thrust into in its early history. It is not surprising that these derived concepts are often mystical, bizarre, obscure, and confusing--defying logic and repeated explicit statements in Scripture.

Email at foundthereason@yahoo.com