Michael Servetus
Reference: http://www.miguelservet.org/servetus/works.htm#trinitatis
Very few topics have been subject to such a heated controversy and dispute as the dogma of Trinity. According to Prof. Bainton, the reasons which may explain the establishment of such dogma by the religious hierarchy in the IV century related to the need to explain all that the doctrine of Incarnation in relation to God. If God had made himself flesh exclusively in Christ, and this latter was also God, Christians could be accused of having two Gods. And when the Holy Spirit became a person, then the problem was whether Christians could be allegedly said to have three Gods. The solution to this dilemma was to establish the dogma of the Trinity which consisted of admitting simultaneously a unity and a trinity in Godhead (R. H. Bainton, “El Hereje Perseguido”, Ed. Taurus, 1973, p. 40).
Servetus studied the Holy Scriptures, and as he stated in this first treatise, he did not find any reference to the word Trinity. Hence, he questioned the validity of one of the fundamental dogmas of Christianity: “We must not impose as truths - contended Servetus - concepts over which there are doubts”. According to Servetus, in God there is one single person, whereas the Roman church explained the Trinity as one entity in substance or essence but present in three persons or hypostases known as the Father, the Word (Logos) or the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All are equal and each of them is God, all are eternally divine yet there are different and are one. Servetus clearly opposed to the splitting up of the divine essence and contented that the persons of the Trinity are rather “forms” that God has chosen to manifest itself. According to Servetus, Christ was made a man by God, and his human nature prevents him from being God and participating in the eternity nature of God. As a result, God was eternal, but Jesus Christ (the Son), since he was begot by the Father, was not eternal.
This unorthodox interpretation of the dogma of Trinity did not mean that Servetus underestimated the importance of Christ to understand the relationship between God and mankind. For Servetus, Jesus Christ is the “key” which allows mankind to enter in God’s home and partake in his divinity.
References:
"Michael Servetus"(http://www.miguelservet.org/servetus/life.htm) |