Why don't Mormons believe in the Trinity?

Answer 1

Mormons "... believe in God the Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." (First Article of Faith, Joseph Smith).

However, they also believe that: "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us." (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22, Revelation given to Joseph Smith, 1843)

The doctrine of the Trinity requires one to believe that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one in body. Mormons do not believe that. They believe them to be one in purpose.

In addition, most Mormons have a very low opinion of how the doctrine of the Trinity was introduced into Christianity. They believe that this doctrine that was added to Christian theology hundreds of years after Christ's death and the death of the original 12 Apostles. After a great and lengthy debate, this doctrine was barely passed by a slight majority of Christian leaders, and then was spread throughout the Church over which Constantine, a former pagan, presided.

This doctrine, which was inspired mostly by the earlier Greek philosophers, was soon entwined in the writings of the earlier Apostles as the church's scribes replaced or reworded the original scriptures with words that taught the council's doctrine of the Trinity. As an example, the original writings in 1 John 5:7-8 used to read:

"There are three that bear witness: the spirit, the water and the blood and these three are one."

After the doctrine of the Trinity was developed, the scribes changed this scripture to read:

"There are three that bear witness in Heaven: the Father; the Word and the Spirit and these three are one; and there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the water and the blood and these three are one."

The oldest Greek copy of the New Testament was found in 1844 by Constantine Tischendorf in a monetary at the foot of Mt. Sinai. This manuscript is called the Sinaitic Manuscript or the Codex of Sinaiticus and it was translated into English recently and is now on the web at http://www.sinaiticus.com. This manuscript is believed to be the oldest Greek copy of the New Testament in the world.

If you go to this copy of the New Testament, you will find that 1 John 5:7-8 reads as follows:

"For they that testify are three, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and the three are one."

From this oldest copy of the scriptures we find that the later copies of 1 John 5:7-8 were intentionally altered to include the doctrine of the Trinity as quoted in the previous paragraph. This is true for all the other scriptural passages in which the doctrine of the Trinity is now included in the Bible. This doctrine was added by Catholic scribes to convince Bible readers that the doctrine of the Trinity was Biblical.

Multiple Christian scholars have stated that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be found in the Bible. The philosophies encapsulated in the doctrine of the Trinity, however can be found in the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. Therefore, the nature of God that Christian require LDS members to accept to be considered Christians is built upon the foundation of Greek philosophy not Biblical teachings by the Hebrew, or by Christ or his Apostles. For a more details discussion of the concepts presented above, see the writings of Dr. Stephen E. Robinson, Ph.D. from Duke University in Biblical Studies and currently on the faculty at Brigham Young University.

The God of the Greeks is without body, parts or passion, and apostate Christianity adopted these Greek teachings as Christian doctrine, but this is NOT the beliefs of the Hebrews, or the teachings of Christ and His Apostles. These claims about the Hellenization of Christian doctrine are discussed by many Christian scholars. It is not something that the LDS scholars made up.