Note: This is part of a series on the Trinity from a rational, non-mystical perspective. See the index here.

One of the more interesting facets of the doctrine of the Trinity is just how many proof-texts are asserted to be evidence or proof of the Trinity. There are dozens or even hundreds of verses. That’s a massive body of evidence. Compare this to, say, the Patriarchal Passages on the roles of women in the church where there are less than a dozen proof-texts.

Collectively, these many verses on the Trinity form a sort of “corpus” of evidence.

But I’ve noticed something curious when reading the writings of apologists. They’ll make successive arguments in this form:

This will then repeated with each verse in the corpus: verse B, verse C, verse D, etc.

This is similar to Jesse Albrecht’s citation of John 15:13 or James Attebury’s mass citations.

The problem is that “verse A” is contained within the corpus of evidence for the Trinity. Thus, the premise (the corpus of evidence) contains the conclusion. Thus is the conclusion—verse A—contained in the premise. That’s circular reasoning.

One could envision the corpus of Trinitarian proof-texts as a giant interconnected net—rather than a simple circle—with each verse inductively supporting the other verses. Unless it is grounded in a foundation, this is just as meaningless as a circle. For just like a circle, it has no rational starting point.

In all my reading on the topic of the Trinity, I’ve never seen Trinitarians agree on what constitutes a scriptural foundation from out of which one can deductively (and sequentially) examine evidence. Invariably, one or more of the following will happen:

(1) The circularity will go undetected.
(2) Extra-biblical tradition will be cited.
(3) The doctrine of the Trinity will be called a mystery.

But none of these provide a scriptural foundation in the Word of God itself. None of them break the circle. And neither does the fourth option:

(4) One Trinitarian’s independent foundation will be another’s dependent variable.

Given this “agreement,” not only does the corpus of proof-texts build circularly, but so does the collection of individual authorities form a collective circular “mesh” without foundation, especially when they start citing each other.

The most commonly suggested “foundation” of the Trinity is the Prologue to John’s Gospel. This is presumed to be standalone proof of the Trinity, but it is very far from conclusive. If that is truly the foundation—and by the sheer frequency of citation it appears to be implicitly—then the doctrine of the Trinity has no foundation in the Word of God.

I encourage all the rational Christian apologists to take a good look at the doctrine of the Trinity and try to establish a logical deductive foundation from out of which to base the argument. Avoid using a circularly interconnected mesh of proof-texts that try to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Find the verses—if any—that state the doctrine of the Trinity or the divinity of Christ explicitly and unambiguously, and build from there. If you can’t do that, then maybe it is time to be a little less dogmatic and a lot more humble on the point.

But let’s say you succeed. The next step is to make sure that your explanation is not novel. You’ll have to find two or three witnesses—ancient writers or modern apologists—who agree with you that your foundation is accurate and isn’t derived from some other foundation (stated or unstated). If you can’t find anyone who agrees with you, then maybe it is time to be a little less dogmatic and a lot more humble on the point.

Now let’s say you’ve confirmed and established your findings by the testimony of witnesses. What then? Well then you must subject your foundation to examination to see if it holds up. Post your findings here, and we’ll look over them. Until then, maybe it is time to be a little less dogmatic and a lot more humble on the point.