Part 1 - Did Jesus and His Disciples Teach the Trinity Doctrine? - Conclusion of Anathemas Pronounced on Opposerss

"If  anyone denies  that the Father is eternal, that the Son is eternal, and that the Holy Spirit is eternal: he is a heretic."

"If anyone denies that the Son of God is true God, just as the Father is true God, having all power, knowing all things, and equal to the Father: he is a heretic." 

"If anyone denies that the three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, are true persons, equal, eternal, containing all things visible and invisible, that they are omnipotent, . . . he is a heretic." 

If anyone says that [the Son who was ]made flesh was not in heaven with the Father while he was on earth; he is a heretic."  

"If anyone, while saying that the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, . .  . does not say that they are one God, . . .  he is a heretic."  (yeah, and this guy was a wackadoodle -nut case) 

The Jesuit scholars who translated the foregoing from Latin added the  comment: Pope St. Celestine I (422-32) apparently considered these cannon laws; they may be considered definitions of faith." and scholar Edmund J. Fortman asserts that the tome represents  "sound and solid trinitarian doctrine."

If you are a member of the church  that accepts  the Trinity teaching, do these statements define your faith? And did you realize that to believe in the Trinity doctrine as taught by the churches requires you to believe that Jesus was in heaven while he was on earth? This teaching is similar to what fourth-century churchman Athanasius stated in his book On the Incarnation;

"The Word [Jesus] was not hedged in by his body, nor did His presence in the body prevent His being present elsewhere as well.  When he moved His body He did not cease also to direct the universe by His Mind and might. . . . He is still Source of life to all the universe, present in every part of it, yet outside the whole." 

Next time:  Part 1 - Did Jesus and His Disciples Teach the Trinity Doctrine? - What the Trinity Doctrine Means 

From the jw.org publications