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- Written by EJ Sweeney
The Da Vince Code claimed that the Divinity of Jesus—and hence, the doctrine of the Trinity—was invented at the Council of Nicea in 325. I know, I know, it’s only fiction! But so many people have accepted this claim as scholarly fact, it’s become a commonly held belief. In this week’s blog, I’m going to continue to respond to some great comments I received that challenged the idea that the Trinity is found in the Bible. But, unlike last week, I won’t assume that the Bible is the Inspired Word of God. Instead, I’ll use the best, recent scholarship to show where the Trinity actually originated—spoiler alert: it wasn’t the Council of Nicea!
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
After my last two blogs on the Trinity, I received a couple of very thoughtful comments. They challenged the assumption I made that the Trinity is found in the Bible. They argued instead that this doctrine is an invention of the Church, several hundred years later.
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
The greatest story ever told. This is how the story of Jesus, the Gospel, is often described. When I hear this, though, I think of those “cheesy” movies of the 1960’s and 70’s, like Ben Hur or Jesus of Nazareth. They weren’t terrible, but they were nowhere close to the greatest story ever told! The greatest story would have to be something more like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, three of the top books and movies of all time.
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
Previously, I told the story of how, back when I was teaching, right after I had given(what I thought was!) a brilliant explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity—how God could be Three Persons in One Being—one of my students put their hand up and asked: “Mr. Sweeney, doesn’t this mean that God is schizophrenic?”
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
On her show, Oprah Winfrey would often say: God is love! As if this was self-evident. As if anyone who believed in God simply accepted this as a given. As if all religions believed this fundamental truth. In fact, it has become an unquestioned “truism” in our culture that all religions agree on this one basic thing: God IS love.
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- Written by EJ Sweeney
Last week, I shared C.S. Lewis’s famous “liar, lunatic, or Lord” quote. As long as Jesus claimed to be God, these are the only options we have about His identity. I went on to show that, using the best scientific criteria for determining what’s historical, modern scripture scholarship is unearthing more and more evidence from the Gospels that clearly shows Jesus thought of Himself this way. According to Lewis, this leads to the inescapable conclusion that Jesus can be none other than the Lord of All—He was too good to be a liar and too wise to be a lunatic.
