The Trinity: Evidence And Issues

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book!
Review: Dr. Morey has done it yet again. He goes to the bible and takes it one piece at a time to prove that God(YHWH) has a Triune nature! Dr. Morey takes the Old Testament and proves, from scripture it self, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the one triune God and he proves the samething in the New Testament. Dr. Morey gives a good description on Arianism and Modalism at the end of his book. This is one of the most exhaustive books on the Trinity today.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Book
Review: Dr. Robert Morey's book, "The Trinity:Evidence and Issues" is by far the most complete and well rounded defense of Trinitarianism that I have read thus far. He examines both the Old and the New Testaments in order to prove the Triune nature of God. In addition to that, he also examines the intertestamental literature to prove that the Jews believed that the Messiah would be divine. He also demonstrates that the early church believed in the multi-personal nature of God. Dr. Morey also refutes arianism and modalism in the last two chapters of the book (though as a former modalsit myself, I wish he would have been more thorough in his refutation of this heresy). This book is a must have for any Christian (as it concerns one of the most important and misunderstood Christian doctrines), and a must read for any anti-Trinitarian. In response to the review by Stefan on this book, Dr. Morey does discuss what Christ meant when He said "My Father is greater than I" in John 14:28. The answer is found in Philippians 2:5-11, where it is shown that Christ was equal with the Father, but subjected Himself to the Father's will and humbled Himself to the point of death. This state of humiliation and self-sacrifice is what Christ meant when He said "My Father is greater than I." For more complete refutations of modalism, I recommend Gregory A. Boyd's "Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity" and E. Calvin Beisner's "Jesus Only Churches."

Rating:
Summary: Good survey and defense of Trinitarianism
Review: I've always had a tough time trying to explain the doctrine of the Trinity to people. But Dr. Morey does a solid job of discussing not only the history of the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, but he goes into the Old Testament (and even refers to the Hebrew text) and shows how there is evidence of plurality within the Godhead in texts such as Genesis 1:26; 3:2; Genesis 18; Is 9:6; 48:16; 63:9; Zech 2:10-11, and others.

He then moves through the New Testament evidence, and discusses such passages as Matthew 3:16-18; 28:18-20 and passages dealing with the relationship between the Father and the Son.

The book is academic in nature, yet is simply written and very informative. It isn't quite as engaging as his prior work, "Death and the Afterlife," but it is one of the better books on the subject of the Trinity.

Rating:
Summary: Incredibly Helpful for Christian Witness
Review: In this book, Morey has offered no better defense of the Trinity than Robert Bowman, Walter Martin or Ron Rhodes. The one difference Morey does offer over these other men is that he at least admits what I've known all along; that being that Trinitarians must bring their doctrine to the Bible in order to substantiate their claims.
Morey begins with the Trinity as his a priori. That is, he assumes the Trinity is a "given" and then goes into the Bible LOOKING for support for his belief. This is called the deductive method, which is not an effective method for understanding scripture. Morey outlines a number of deductions that, if are found to be true, would mean the "given" must be true too. Morey wastes a whole chapter trying to convince the reader that it is okay to already assume the Trinity is true before we examine the scriptures. He then justifies his course by stating that anti-Trinitarians have as their a priori the belief that God is not a Trinity and states "While we can understand why the non-Christian would want to begin with this as his a priori, why would a professing Christian want to start there as well?" (Pg 18) I'll be more than happy to explain why to Mr. Morey.
First, that is where the early Christians started. That is, when the apostles met Jesus, they did not already have as a priori the belief that God was a triune being. They let Jesus tell them who he was. They did not already assume who Jesus was and then listen to his words to see if what he said supported who they already thought he was. This point leads to the second downfall of the Trinitarian deductive method.
When Trinitarians hear Jesus say, "the Father is greater than I am", "Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, God" or when he calls his Father the "only true God", along with over a hundred other scriptures that seem to state he is not God, they immediately quote their doctrine and say 'Jesus is not equal to God in his human nature but he is equal to God in his divine nature.'
Here's the problem with this approach (other than the fact there are no scriptures that say Jesus had two natures, human and divine, at the same time!). The people 2000 years ago who listened to Jesus preach did not have the luxury of quoting the Athanasian Creed. This means when they heard Jesus say things that showed he was less than God; they believed it. They didn't say, 'Well, Jesus is less than God because he's in his human nature but he is still equal to God in his divine nature.' In other words, they did not have the luxury of reading into Jesus' words their already preconceived belief. Jesus' saying his Father was greater than him had a much different import to those back then than they do to Trinitarians today.
Another fault with Morey's method is that he does not let the evidence form his belief in God; he lets his preconceived belief interpret the evidence. His a priori taints how he understands the scriptures. With the Trinity doctrine, anything short of Jesus saying 'God is not a Triune being and I am not God' would be brushed off with the 'human nature vs. divine nature' argument. Morey apparently forgot what he wrote on page 33 when he warns the reader "It is a literary error ... attempting to read your own ideas...into the text." Yet when Morey blows off evidence that would imply Jesus is not God to anyone who does not already believe in the Trinity, he is doing just that! In fact, I chuckled when Morey said, "it is the anti-Trinitarian who allows his theology to dictate the meaning of a text." (Pg 346)
Morey talks a big game about how to understand scripture but his practice is purely in the minor leagues. After mentioning how we need to examine the context of a verse in order to understand the meaning, he mentions John 5:18 where the Jews thought Jesus was making himself equal to God. Morey claims the Jews correctly understood Jesus' words (even though they misunderstood him so many other times) but amazingly, he didn't mention Jesus' reply in the very next sentence! Jesus answered their charge by saying 'the Son can do nothing on his own but only what he beholds the Father doing.' (Vs 19) I think it's pretty obvious why Morey didn't want to bring up the context of this discussion.
We can show scriptural examples of persons being called god or son of God by God Himself. We can show how others besides Jesus were called Immanuel, savior and lord. How others healed people, were given the authority to forgive sins and received "worship". How Jesus said we are one just as he and God are. Where did Morey show that Jesus had two natures at the same time? That God can have a God and still be God? That Jesus knew all things and yet had to be given his knowledge? (Rev 1:1) That Jesus can call his Father the ONLY true God and yet he is also the only true God? Morey should read the Bible like a 1st century Jew, not a Trinitarian. Maybe Philo would have come up with a Triune God but some fishermen and a tax collector would have seen Jesus as the Son of God.
If this is what Trinitarians have to offer- already assumed beliefs; ignoring Jesus' reply to accusations supposedly supporting the Trinity; ignoring dozens of non-Trinitarian arguments and misstating others, don't expect to get very far with us.

If you want to see less biased book, get "Jesus-God or the Son of God?", available here at Amazon.com.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome!........................+intellectually stimulating+
Review: This book is so unbelievably cool. A breath of fresh air. This book should be read by everyone! It is great to know that there are people out there that know the truth and not just hope in it blindly. It is too bad Jehovah's Witnesses aren't allowed to read Christian literature, it would sure make our jobs easier. It is obvious from the reviews against this book that the people who wrote them are either intellectually impoverished or they did not read the book the whole way through. I am so thankful to God for the blessings he has given me and for Dr. Morey.

Rating:
Summary: This book is totally amazing!
Review: This book is totally amazing I can't express it. It's been a huge boost to my faith. The first section on the OT sealed the deal for me, the NT half was also stunning. I pray the Lord blesses the author for his faithfulness and his contribution to Christianity. I would recommend this book to anyone who doubts what the scripture has to say about The Trinity.

Rating:
Summary: could have been better and more fair
Review: this book was decent, but it certainly could have been better. on the positive side, many sources are cited, and the defense of the Trinity is actually quite thorough in the sense that it is dealt with from Genesis to Revelation and beyond. but unfortunately, several points are not given attention enough, and sometimes it even seemed that cap'n Morey was less than forthcoming with all the evidence. for example, in a hasty attempt to prove that prov. 8:22 doesn't speak of Jesus, Morey says that the idea of Jesus being identified as Wisdom was completely foreign to New Testament writers--a view which is honestly ridiculous, atleast according to most NT scholars i've read or heard of. but even worse, he compounds this mistake by -1-admitting that the ante-nicene fathers identified Jesus as Wisdom, -2-saying that it doesn't matter because the ante nicene fathers opinions aren't ultimately decisive, and then -3- citing some of the early fathers works to support the Trinity? unfortunately, such examples are commonplace. two more criticisms are that he didn't take the time to defend the Trinity in a logical/philosophical sense, nor did he delve into the historical development with as much gusto as i would have liked. surely such an attempt would have been worthwhile, but on the other hand, had such attention been given, we wouldn't be dealing with a book, but with several. be that as it may, the book does provide several points which i don't think the anti-Trinitarian can overcome, or if he/she can overcome those points, at the very least he/she will be less than comfortable. several venerable scholars are cited, and as aforesaid, in a sense, the issue is thoroughly dealt with. in closing i want to respond to the two critics below, lest anyone should be deterred from purchasing this decent book due to their (mostly) bogus complaints. first, the fellow from Germany named stefan. while what he says about the ebionites/nazarenes is true, he apparently is unaware of the fact that these views were not the norm back in Christianity's early days. as a matter of fact, some of the distinguishing elements of early Christianity were the exaltation and worship of Jesus as risen Lord (see Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volumes 1 and 2 by nt wright, and also Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, by jdg dunn). as for what stefan had to say about nicea, i honestly wonder where he got his facts. all but 2 bishops signed the creed (even though the issue was rather complicated). and also, i really doubt that stefan read the book, for approximately every biblical point he raised was dealt with by Morey. and now to the chap from oklahoma. first of all, he gives a rather poor bibliography for the subject. if you insist on reading the books he recommends, i would also like to recommend the titles mentioned above, along with the following: for christology: The Many Faces of Christ, ben witherington, A History of Christian Thought, Volume 1, justo gonzalez. william lane craig briefly deals with the self-understanding of Jesus, albeit more modestly, in a sense, in his book Reasonable Faith. for textual corruption of the NT go to integrityonline15.com the bottom line is that the NT has more textual integrity than any other work of antiquity (The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict, josh mc dowell). as for the oklahomans biblical citations, a few brief comments are in order. 1 cor. 8:6 does say: 'for us their is but one God, the Father', but what he failed to mention is that immediately following is the phrase '...and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ'. what, is the Father not Lord? the best way to deal with these two statements is to view them in light of each other. if you exclude the Son, you have also excluded the Father--which is nonsense. as for the oklahomans citation of John 17:2, i don't really know what to say. the average person who reads John walks away feeling as though Jesus is, at least to the author, God. also, 1 John 5:20 calls Jesus 'the true God'. once again, we'd be better off reading these verses in light of each other. the fact that the author for both books is the same person (or at least from the same school), along with the fact of the overwhelmingly high christology of the gospel of John, makes the issue rather plain. in sum, the book Trinity: Evidence and Issues is decent, but it is by no means excellent, and it is plagued by a rather hasty style. allthesame, in it is evidence enough to support the Trinity from a biblical perspective.