Implication 1: Father and Mother versus the Trinity- Which Model Best Fits Scripture?
Updated: Sep 2
If the biblical argument developed throughout this section is correct—if God is Father and Mother, eternally and perfectly one in Love—then an unavoidable implication follows:
What does this mean for the Christian doctrine of the Trinity?
Traditional Christianity teaches that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct persons:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I agree with several foundational insights behind that doctrine.
I believe there is only one God.
I believe God contains genuine personal relationship within Himself.
I believe the Father is God.
I believe the Holy Spirit is a distinct divine person and not merely an impersonal force.
And I believe Jesus occupies an astonishingly exalted position in God’s purposes.
Where I differ from traditional Christianity is in identifying who the divine persons actually are.
After examining the biblical evidence, I have come to believe that Scripture reveals two divine persons within the one God:
The Father and the Holy Spirit.
Father and Mother.
Jesus, in contrast, is God’s uniquely exalted human Son, Messiah, Lord, King, mediator, image, and representative.
So the disagreement is not simply:
Trinity or one-person Unitarianism?
I do not believe God is a solitary divine person.
The question is:
Which model of a multi-personal God best accounts for everything Scripture says?
The traditional model:
Father + Son + Holy Spirit = the one God
Or the model I have developed throughout this section:
Father + Holy Spirit—Father and Mother—eternally united in one divine life = the one God
I believe the second model ultimately makes better sense of the biblical evidence.
1. The Trinity Is an Attempt to Take Scripture Seriously
Before explaining why I disagree with the Trinity, I want to acknowledge something important.
The doctrine did not arise for no reason.
Christians encountered several biblical realities that had to be explained.
The Father is clearly God.
Jesus is given extraordinarily exalted titles, authority, glory, and functions.
The Holy Spirit speaks, acts, gives life, sanctifies, teaches, knows, wills, and performs works belonging to God.
At the same time, Scripture insists that:
God is one.
Trinitarian theology attempts to hold these realities together by saying that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons who fully share the one divine nature.
That is an intellectually serious attempt to synthesize biblical evidence.
So my objection is not that Trinitarians have ignored Scripture or that the doctrine is obviously foolish.
My question is more specific:
Did the Church identify the three persons correctly?
I increasingly believe it did not.
2. Scripture Explicitly Identifies the Father as God
There is little controversy here.
Throughout the New Testament, the Father is repeatedly called God.
Paul writes:
“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.” 1 Corinthians 8:6
Jesus prays to the Father and calls Him:
“the only true God.” John 17:3
After his resurrection Jesus says:
“I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” John 20:17
Paul speaks of:
“the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 1:3
Peter uses the same language (1 Peter 1:3).
The Father is the Creator, the source of life, the One who raises the dead, the ultimate source of salvation, the One Jesus prays to, worships, obeys, and calls his God.
So the first part of the model is clear:
The Father is God.
3. Scripture Also Gives the Holy Spirit Divine Identity
This is where I believe Christianity came very close to recognizing something enormously important.
The Holy Spirit is not simply God's power.
She speaks.
She teaches.
She guides.
She commands.
She sends.
She appoints.
She intercedes.
She loves.
She distributes gifts according to Her will.
She can be grieved and resisted.
And Scripture attributes to Her characteristics and works belonging to God.
She is eternal:
“the eternal Spirit.” Hebrews 9:14
She creates:
“The Spirit of God has made me.” Job 33:4
She gives life:
“The Spirit gives life.” John 6:63
She is universally present:
“Where can I go from your Spirit?” Psalm 139:7
She knows the depths of God:
“The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:10
Acts even moves directly between lying to the Holy Spirit and lying to God (Acts 5:3–4).
Elsewhere, words spoken by Yahweh in the Old Testament are attributed to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament.
I therefore agree with traditional Christianity on an enormously important point:
The Holy Spirit belongs within the identity of God.
But I believe Christianity has failed to recognize the full significance of who this divine person is.
4. The Divine Person Christianity Calls “He” Is Revealed Through Feminine and Maternal Patterns
Genesis begins with one of the most fundamental statements about humanity:
“God created mankind in his own image… male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27
Genesis alone does not prove that God consists of one masculine and one feminine divine person.
But it establishes something that every doctrine of God must explain:
Both male and female humanity bear God's image.
Femininity is therefore not foreign to God.
It comes from God.
Yet traditional Christian language has overwhelmingly pictured God's personal reality in masculine terms:
Father.
Son.
Holy Spirit as “He.”
The Christian God is not officially regarded as biologically male, of course. Classical theology affirms that God transcends biological sex.
Nevertheless, the personal imagery remains overwhelmingly masculine.
I think Scripture gives us reason to question that picture.
The Hebrew word ruach, Spirit, is grammatically feminine. That does not prove personal gender, just as Greek grammatical gender by itself cannot establish personal gender.
More significantly, Scripture identifies the Spirit with Wisdom.
Isaiah calls Her:
“the Spirit of wisdom.” Isaiah 11:2
Wisdom is repeatedly personified as feminine.
Wisdom speaks.
Wisdom teaches.
Wisdom calls.
Wisdom has children.
And Christians are explicitly:
“born of the Spirit.” John 3:6
Birth is naturally maternal imagery.
An early Jewish-Christian tradition even preserved a saying in which Jesus referred to “my Mother, the Holy Spirit.” That noncanonical saying cannot establish what Jesus historically said, but it demonstrates that feminine and maternal understanding of the Spirit existed very early within Christianity. (van Oort)
None of these pieces by itself establishes the entire case.
But cumulatively I believe they reveal something Christianity has largely lost:
The divine Spirit is not merely another masculine person alongside Father and Son.
She is Mother.
5. Jesus Is Repeatedly Distinguished From God
This is where my model differs most sharply from the Trinity.
Throughout my New Testament Study Bible, I repeatedly encountered the same basic pattern:
God acts.
And:
God acts through Jesus.
God sends Jesus.
God anoints Jesus.
God gives Jesus His words.
God performs miracles through Jesus.
God gives Jesus authority.
God raises Jesus from the dead.
God exalts Jesus.
God makes him Lord and Christ.
God appoints him Judge.
God gives him an inheritance.
God places everything under his feet.
God reconciles humanity to Himself through Jesus.
And Jesus himself prays to God, worships God, obeys God, serves God, trusts God, and calls God:
“my God.”
Acts summarizes Jesus' ministry this way:
“Jesus of Nazareth, a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him.” Acts 2:22
First Timothy gives an especially clear distinction:
“For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 2:5
One God.
And between that God and humanity:
the man Christ Jesus.
This pattern does not diminish Jesus.
It explains his extraordinary role.
Jesus is the human being through whom God reveals Himself and acts with unparalleled fullness. I explain this fully in my New Testament Study Bible and my blog section "Who is Jesus?"
6. The Highest New Testament Language About Jesus Still Allows This Distinction
I do not base my conclusion on ignoring the passages most often used for Jesus' deity.
They matter enormously.
John presents Jesus as preexistent and speaks of extraordinary glory.
Colossians calls him:
“the image of the invisible God.” Colossians 1:15
It says that all things are in, through, and for him and that:
“all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form” in Christ. Colossians 2:9
Hebrews calls Jesus:
“the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being.” Hebrews 1:3
He is exalted above angels.
He sits at God's right hand.
The coming world is subjected to him.
Revelation gives Jesus enormously exalted titles and universal kingship.
These passages should not be minimized.
But they also need to be read alongside the distinctions built directly into them.
Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
God's fullness dwells in him.
God appoints him heir.
God anoints him.
God exalts him.
He sits at God's right hand.
And God ultimately subjects all things beneath Christ while remaining Himself the exception to that subjection (1 Corinthians 15:27).
The question is not whether Jesus is extraordinarily exalted.
He unquestionably is.
The question is whether extraordinary exaltation requires Jesus to be God Himself.
I do not believe it does.
7. The Biblical Description of God Creates an Even Deeper Problem for Jesus' Deity
There is another problem that I think goes beyond differences in role.
Scripture reveals characteristics that belong to God's very nature.
God knows all things.
God cannot be tempted by evil.
God is inherently immortal.
God is unchanging.
God is the ultimate source of authority rather than someone who receives authority from another.
God is not dependent upon another being for His words, works, life, or power.
Yet Jesus is genuinely tempted.
Jesus says there are things he does not know.
Jesus truly dies.
Jesus grows.
Jesus learns obedience.
Jesus becomes perfect.
Jesus receives authority.
Jesus says he can do nothing from himself.
Jesus says his teaching is not ultimately his own.
Jesus prays for help.
Jesus submits his will to God's will.
Traditional Trinitarian theology explains these differences through the incarnation: Jesus possesses both a divine nature and a human nature.
I understand the logic of that explanation.
But the two-natures framework are not stated in the biblical passages themselves.
Jesus does not say:
“My human nature does not know the day, although my divine nature does.”
He says:
“nor the Son, but only the Father.” Mark 13:32
James does not say that God cannot be tempted according to one nature while a divine person may simultaneously be genuinely tempted according to another.
It simply says:
“God cannot be tempted by evil.” James 1:13
And the Gospels say Jesus was tempted.
These are not merely questions of who performs which role.
They concern what God is and what Jesus experiences as a person.
That is one major reason I no longer think the Trinity gives the simplest or most coherent explanation of the biblical evidence.
8. The Father-and-Mother Model Preserves God's Multi-Personal Life Without Making Jesus God
One reason Christians sometimes find it difficult to imagine Jesus not being divine is that God can otherwise appear to become eternally solitary.
If the Father alone is God, who did God love before creation?
How could John say not merely that God loves, but:
“God is love”? 1 John 4:8
My understanding does not produce a solitary God.
Before creation there was already:
Father and Spirit.
Father and Mother.
God was already relational.
God was already communion.
God was already Love.
The Father did not need to create Jesus, angels, or humanity in order to begin loving another.
Father and Mother eternally knew and loved one another.
Creation then becomes not the solution to divine loneliness, but the overflow of divine Love.
Jesus does not need to be inserted into God's identity to make God relational.
God already is relationship.
9. The Holy Spirit as “God's Spirit” Gives a Natural Explanation of Divine Oneness
The Father-and-Mother model also does not require imagining two independent gods standing beside one another.
Scripture repeatedly calls Her:
God's Spirit.
His Spirit.
the Spirit of God.
the Spirit of Yahweh.
Paul makes an intriguing comparison:
“For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”1 Corinthians 2:11
A person's spirit is not an unrelated second human being.
It belongs intrinsically to that person's living identity.
God's Spirit, however, is revealed with genuine personal agency beyond anything analogous in an ordinary human spirit.
She speaks.
She wills.
She loves.
She teaches.
She sends.
She creates.
She gives life.
So I believe Scripture gives us something extraordinary:
The Mother is neither identical to the Father nor external to Him.
She is God's own Spirit—personally distinct, yet intrinsic to the one divine life.
There was never a Father without His Spirit.
There was never a Holy Spirit who was not God's Spirit.
Their unity is not an alliance between two previously independent beings.
It belongs eternally to who God is.
10. Which Model Better Explains Male and Female in God's Image?
Now the comparison becomes especially interesting.
Under the traditional Trinity:
Father — masculine identity
Son — masculine identity
Spirit — conventionally masculine personal language
Yet humanity in God's image is:
male and female.
Traditional theology can certainly say that both sexes reflect a God who transcends sex.
But the Father-and-Mother model offers, in my judgment, a much more direct explanation.
Human fatherhood has its ultimate source in God the Father.
Human motherhood has its ultimate source in God the Mother.
The Spirit gives life.
We are born of Her.
She teaches.
She comforts.
She guides.
She indwells Her children.
And Genesis says humanity in God's image is:
male and female.
The pieces fit together remarkably naturally.
11. Which Model Requires More Theological Additions?
This question does not prove anything by itself.
Sometimes reality is complicated.
The simplest explanation is not always the correct one.
But explanatory complexity does matter when comparing theological models.
The traditional doctrine requires several concepts that Scripture itself never states in those exact terms:
three persons in one being,
God the Son,
one person possessing two complete natures,
and, in later Christology,
two wills within Christ.
These concepts were developed to reconcile biblical passages that appeared to pull in different directions.
My model also involves theological synthesis.
Scripture never gives the sentence:
“God consists of Father and Mother, two persons eternally united as one God.”
I therefore do not want to pretend my conclusion requires no inference.
It does.
The fair comparison is not:
“One model interprets; the other merely quotes Scripture.”
Both interpret.
The question is:
Which interpretation requires fewer tensions with the actual biblical descriptions?
In the model I am proposing:
The Father is God because Scripture repeatedly identifies Him as God.
The Spirit is God because Scripture attributes divine identity, characteristics, and works to Her.
The Father and Spirit are distinct because Scripture distinguishes Them.
They remain one God because the Spirit is God's own Spirit, intrinsic to the divine life.
Jesus is not God because Scripture repeatedly distinguishes him from God and describes him as God's human Son, Messiah, servant, mediator, and appointed Lord.
Jesus can be tempted because he is human.
Jesus can lack knowledge because he is human.
Jesus can receive authority because God grants authority to His Messiah.
Jesus can learn obedience and become perfect because he genuinely develops.
Jesus can worship God because God is actually his God.
None of those statements require Jesus simultaneously to possess the opposite property according to another nature.
To me, that is a major explanatory advantage.
12. Which Model Best Fits the Shema?
Jesus himself identifies Israel's greatest commandment by quoting:
“Hear, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Mark 12:29
The scribe replies:
“He is one, and there is no other but he.” Mark 12:32
Jesus tells him he has answered wisely.
Nothing in this exchange explicitly introduces three divine persons.
But neither does God's oneness necessarily require only one person.
Genesis itself says that two human persons can become:
“one flesh.” Genesis 2:24
The Hebrew word echad simply means “one”; it does not secretly mean “compound unity.” So I do not use the word itself as proof of a multi-person God.
The larger biblical evidence has to tell us what God's oneness contains.
I believe it reveals:
Father and Spirit.
Father and Mother.
Not three gods.
Not two gods.
Not one solitary person.
One divine life containing genuine personal distinction.
13. Christianity Was Right About Something Profound
Christianity recognized something important in the Trinity doctrine:
God is not solitary.
The Holy Spirit is personal.
The Holy Spirit is divine.
Jesus is unimaginably exalted.
God's own life contains relationship.
Those are profound truths.
Where I believe Christian theology went wrong was in the final identification of the persons.
It included Jesus within God.
And it failed to recognize the full identity of the feminine divine person Scripture calls:
God's Spirit.
I believe the better synthesis is:
The Father is God.
The Mother is God.
The Father is not the Mother.
The Mother is not the Father.
They are not two gods.
They are Yahweh—the one God.
And:
Jesus is their human Son and Messiah, not another person within God.
14. Which Model Best Accounts for Everything Scripture Says?
That, ultimately, is the question I think Christians should ask.
Not:
Which doctrine is older?
Not:
Which doctrine was eventually declared orthodox?
Not:
Which doctrine feels safest to us because we already know it?
And not:
Which alternative feels strange because we have never heard it before?
The question is:
What interpretation best accounts for everything Scripture says?
Which model best explains why the Father is God?
Which best explains why the Holy Spirit possesses divine identity and divine works?
Which best explains why She is God's own Spirit yet personally distinct?
Which best explains why humanity in God's image is male and female?
Which best explains the biblical relationship between Spirit and Wisdom?
Which best explains Christians being born of the Spirit?
Which best explains how God could eternally be Love before creation?
Which best explains why Jesus is repeatedly distinguished from God?
Which best explains why Jesus receives authority, knowledge, glory, resurrection, exaltation, and kingship from God?
Which best explains why Jesus can be tempted, develop, pray, obey, suffer, and die while God is described in ways that are incompatible with those experiences?
And which model allows all of those texts to retain their natural force without requiring one person simultaneously to possess opposite characteristics according to two different natures?
After examining the evidence, I believe the Father-and-Mother model accounts for the biblical picture more coherently than the Trinity.
I do not believe God is:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I believe God is:
Father and Holy Spirit.
Father and Mother.
Personally distinct.
Different without inequality.
Fully divine.
Eternally inseparable.
One divine life.
One Yahweh.
One God.
And at the heart of that one divine life:
Love.
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