My Mom has a heretic view of the doctrine of trinity. What should I do?

[DyeLi]

First I am sorry to have two posts within two days, but this huge issue just happened, and I am so helpless at this moment...

Before today's worship I've asked her about her thoughts on trinity. I always saw her as a pentecostalist with bad theology on a number of issues but regenerated. However, my thought was changed after she saying to me that the Father was the Son and was the Holy Spirit. After the worship I prepared some bible verses on trinity to debate her, but she hardly gave me chance to fight back as she yelled that God was the father in the old testament and changed to the Son in the new testament and changed to the Holy Spirit after the redemptive work was finished. She quoted exclusively John 3:13 to illustrate the point because she thought it meant God become Jesus and the Father at the same time in the same person but in different places. I told her it really meant the two natures of Christ, but nothing changed. I then questioned her how then did she account for Jesus praying to the Father and the Holy Spirit came to Christ, was God speaking to himself and coming to himself? She said that is the mystery of God, and human cannot understand. I ask her again about did she truly see God as one person, and she affirmed by repeating God become Father and Son and Holy Spirit at different times, and when I wanted to say more, she just told me that I cannot persuade her to change her mind, and our knowledge was at different levels so I should study more to be qualified to talk to her about this issue again.

She is a heretic this I come to know. But what should I do. The woman spent all her heart on me from I was in her womb. Her affections for me stir no less than great gratitude. But she is a heretic. Oh, I still have to live in their houses, eat their foods and receive tremendous financial help from them for my college. But my mother is a heretic and my father is an unbeliever.

I know that these all come from God. I know God loves me so much as explicitly expressed in the Gospel and the faith He gave me to believe it. I know but I find it really hard to deal with.

What should I do? How should I deal with my relationship to my parents, especially my mom?


PS. I assumed that heretics are unsaved. However after reading this post http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/heretic-still-christian-73835/ and reflecting my own experience, I think it might be possible that one has really faulty ideas on a number of issues but still be saved. My mother is very pious for sure, because she spend several hours reading the bible and praying everyday. However, I still thought it is so horrible that she became so crazy and proud when she was yelling her heretic thoughts on trinity. Anyway, I just want to ask, that is there any chance my mom is still saved?

 

[Joseph Scibbe]

Is your mother a new/immature believer? My advice would be to be patient and look to share the truth in love. Your apporach sounds very harsh and unkind. Instead of debating and arguing then bring it up calmly later.

 

[DyeLi]

She is not a new believer as she claimed Jesus was her lord 8 years ago. but I want to say she should be considered immature... She regularly went to church but not really commit herself to it. Her mom, my grandmother, is in a heretic church "the Lord's Recovery", founded by Witness Lee. She said she figured the trinity out by herself but this Lord's Recovery also identify with that thought. However, she does not go there or commit to their doctrines. She seems to figure all things "out" by herself by reading the bible and watch online sermons. The sermons she watched were good, at least not heretical. She is just so proud to think her thoughts are all the result of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so she hardly change her thoughts at all! I was a little bit harsh at the beginning because I thought faulty understanding of trinity equaled unregenration. I do admit I should better prepare myself and talk with her with a loving heart later. Thank you so much Joseph.

 

[Gavin]

you will be surprised how families influence each other over the years. see it as saying a sentence over a year, but she will, word by word get the sentence. She's probably never understood the Trinity, and is still searching for an explanation. Sabellism was an old condemned heresy that has been revived lately. my advise is also do a little research. Here's a good starting point; Oneness Pentecostalism and the Trinity
Remember, no one has ever been converted by reason. Pray twice and talk once

 

[a mere housewife]

I am praying for your mom now. I'm so sorry for how anguishing it must be to think that of your mother. It is hard I think, for us to be able to know the state of another person's soul when they have had poor teaching.

One of the clearest places in Scripture to show that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all at once is the baptism of Christ. This is in any case, the passage that I (very untrained in these things) would go to, to be able to show someone about the Trinity. But I would pray for an opportunity to bring these examples out in a time when your mother will be open to listening and receiving what you are able to say to her. And I pray you can be hopeful -- the Lord has you there to be able to help her, and to pray for her. That is surely a reason to go on hoping in His mercy towards her.

 

[NB3K]

Love your father & mother. In everything that you do honor them. Debating them will only cause them to move further away from you.

 

[DyeLi]

you will be surprised how families influence each other over the years. see it as saying a sentence over a year, but she will, word by word get the sentence. She's probably never understood the Trinity, and is still searching for an explanation. Sabellism was an old condemned heresy that has been revived lately. my advise is also do a little research. Here's a good starting point; Oneness Pentecostalism and the Trinity
Remember, no one has ever been converted by reason. Pray twice and talk once

I am surprised to see how accurately the descriptions in that article fit in the situations of my mom as I read through the definitions. I just want to thank you and will definitely read it through soon. I will keep your advice in mind, too. Thank you very much, Gavin.

I am praying for your mom now. I'm so sorry for how anguishing it must be to think that of your mother. It is hard I think, for us to be able to know the state of another person's soul when they have had poor teaching.

One of the clearest places in Scripture to show that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all at once is the baptism of Christ. This is in any case, the passage that I (very untrained in these things) would go to, to be able to show someone about the Trinity. But I would pray for an opportunity to bring these examples out in a time when your mother will be open to listening and receiving what you are able to say to her. And I pray you can be hopeful -- the Lord has you there to be able to help her, and to pray for her. That is surely a reason to go on hoping in His mercy towards her.

Thank you really much for your prayers Heidi. I've came to understand that there aren't much we can do except praying to let God change her mind. The issue is way more complicated than I expected. I used many verses like the one you gave me to convince her that God has 3 distinctive persons, but what she was saying is that they are different manifestations of God, and it's just like we have 3 parts (soul, mind, body). In her mind, the fact we are baptized in the name of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit is not at odds with God only has one person because we are baptized into God and the three names are just the three parts of God.

I've came to know that she reasoned her way to heresy by two premises
1) God is one means God has one person;
2) The seemingly three persons of God is a mystery to us, but we have john 3:13 to say that Christ descended from heaven and is at heaven at the same time, and in Isaiah 9:6 Christ being called as the "Everlasting Father"

so---the seemingly three persons of God is unveiled by the God's power to be at different forms and at different places at the same time. So God is Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I also heard from her that the fact Jesus prayed to God as in different persons is because Jesus was bound by a sinful body(now another kind of heresy), so he just needed to do that to sort of maintain his divine characters.

I've seen her building her doctrines on the wrongly taken verses like interpreting "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." as one's belief in Christ brings the whole household to faith. And she just build her theology on that and affirms that my grandmother's church is not heretic. However, I've never came to realize that she should build a vital doctrine on the foundation of another wrongly interpreted doctrine. And I also have no idea how she just ignores numerous clear verses talking about distinctive persons of God and instead build her theology on only two verses.

However the most dangerous thing I fear is her claim that her understanding of the bible is not of herself but the revelation from God. I do not get that revelation because I am weak in faith, so I have no qualification to talk to her, and others are just the same. The thing about pentecostalist is that they think the truthfulness of one thing only depends on how large is your faith in it.

I gradually realize that she may be just using Christianity to serve as another kind of idolatry. And there isn't much I can do about it except prayers. Anyway I will try to read and learn to be prepared if chances come up. And I will surely pray twice and talk once for salvation is of the Lord.

 

[NB3K]

Remember, no one has ever been converted by reason.

AMEN! Brother. It's by the Grace of God that we have been converted!

 

[DyeLi]

Love your father & mother. In everything that you do honor them. Debating them will only cause them to move further away from you.

Thanks. I will try hard to fulfill my responsibilities toward them.

 

[a mere housewife]

I'm so sorry, Dye Li. I pray that your mother will come to see the beauty of the rest we have in Christ from all our own works -- even from having to have enough faith to carry the salvation of others on our shoulders (what a terrible and impossible burden for us to carry). Our Lord still opens the eyes of the blind: it is His sovereign work. I will continue to pray for you, too -- that you can rest this burden of her soul with the Lord; and rest in His being made unto us sufficient wisdom, when you have opportunities to speak to her.

 

[jwright82]

I feel your pain brother. I was raised in a Pentecostal church where for like 10 minutes every service they had new prophecy time where people would talk out loud as if God himself were talking through them. That Episcopal Church has had rampant moral issues from the clergy too. And one of the ladies who regularly were “used” by God to reveal new “prophesies” to us was one of the most judgmental and ungodly person I have ever known.

My mother believes some very heretical things as well. She is very immature in her faith. But I learned a long time ago to not debate with her. As sad as it was I concluded that it was between her and God. I know it is hard to accept but she has the right to believe whatever she wants. One of my brothers is an atheist as well. If we are keeping score than I have “won” hands down every debate he and I have had and yet he is still an atheist. Just be patient and pray. I know inaction can be frustrating but what other choice do you have? If they initiate conversation than we are obliged to defend the truth in a loving way but if they don’t bring it up than we shouldn’t hound them about it.

 

[J. Dean]

Love your father & mother. In everything that you do honor them. Debating them will only cause them to move further away from you.

Agreed. You've made your theological stance clear, and she has made hers clear. When you've proclaimed the truth and people will not hear it, shake off the dust from the feet and move on. Initiating more debate does nothing.

 

[CharlieJ]

Dai Le,

I understand your struggle. Many of us have family who hold some very wrong beliefs. It's difficult to know how to respond. I think you might draw some encouragement from a medieval distinction between heresy and heretic. A heresy is any doctrine that runs counter to the established teaching of the church. Of course, that brings up questions about church and authority, since what the Roman Catholics consider heresy is going to be different from what Reformed people consider heresy.

A heretic, on the other hand, is not just a person who believes a heresy. A person is not condemned as a heretic until he or she has encountered good teaching, understood it, and stubbornly refused it. One of the things that modern philosophers of religion have pointed out is how our cultures inculcate certain "plausibility structures," that is, ways of thinking and talking about God that the culture holds in common and thus seems very believable. Your mother's culture has conditioned her to believe a certain way. That doesn't make it right, but it means her belief is in one sense very different from that of a person who grew up in a Trinitarian church and rejected the doctrine.

 

[greenbaggins]

It is always extremely difficult when it is a parent. You have my sympathy.

A passage that would be worth meditating on is Ephesians 1:3-14, which is structured in a very Trinitarian way (Father-vv. 3-6; Son-vv. 4-12; Spirit-vv. 13-14, with each section ending with the phrase "to the praise of His glory"). The beauty of the passage is that it explains salvation itself as the accomplishment of the Trinitarian God. All three Persons are working together to accomplish our salvation and to apply it to us. If you tie it in to salvation, you might be able to communicate it in a way that is very loving.

 

[cajunhillbilly53]

These are Oneness Pentecostals and yes their view is heretical. It is called Sabellianism after the one who first taught it way back around 200 or 300 AD. I rememeber taklking to the son of a Oneness Pentecostal preacher about this view and just patiently returning to the same passages over and over and over showing the distinction between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I did not know that my talks had any affect on him until years later when I found out he was now the pastor at a C&MA church and believed strongly in the Trinity. So do not give up hope. Keep loving your Mom, keep praying for her and be patient.

 

[a mere housewife]

I was thinking about this today and remembering that some of my own best opportunities have come not in the form of contradicting another person's beliefs directly, but simply in speaking of why my own are precious to me. Perhaps an opportunity will arise where you could simply express the comfort and joy you find from the doctrine of the Trinity -- the rest of soul we have in approaching the Father in the beloved Son with whom He is well pleased, while the Spirit cries out in our hearts, 'Abba, Father'. There is often less opportunity for hostility when simply expressing how precious a doctrine is to us, and why -- and as Rev. Keister pointed out, the comfort and hope of the believer in the doctrines often resonates more strongly than the bare statements. It is a joy to be able to speak of our hope as well, and I think that joy also communicates and has an impact.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

The best passages I have been able to confront this situation with are from the Gospel of John Chapters 13-17 where the Spirit didn't do His own will (as a person) and the Son didn't do His own will (as a person in the Garden) but both do the will of the Father. Both are eternal persons but in essence the same with the Father.
This book God in Three Persons is really good and you can get it really cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0842310738/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?ie=UTF8&condition=used

E. Calvin Beisner is a really good resource also. The second link is about Witness Lee who is an influence in Eastern Circles. Robert Bowman has a paper on this also. It is the last link.

http://ecalvinbeisner.com/freearticles/OnenessPentecostalism.pdf

http://ecalvinbeisner.com/freearticles/TeachingsofWitnessLee&LocalChurch.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Only-Churches-Calvin-Beisner/dp/0310488710

http://www.gospeloutreach.net/optrin.html

 

[nwink]

I've came to know that she reasoned her way to heresy by two premises
1) God is one means God has one person;
2) The seemingly three persons of God is a mystery to us, but we have john 3:13 to say that Christ descended from heaven and is at heaven at the same time, and in Isaiah 9:6 Christ being called as the "Everlasting Father"

so---the seemingly three persons of God is unveiled by the God's power to be at different forms and at different places at the same time. So God is Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Dai, maybe using some definitions would prove helpful. The Trinity is not three persons at the same time as one person. The Trinity is one in essence, but three persons. (I believe that terminology is correct)

WSC Q. 6. How many persons are there in the godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

Get yourself a NKJV and read I John 5:7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." This verse most clearly proves an "essential ontological unity" of the three persons. (I advocate for the manuscript line behind the KJV/Geneva -- save that study for another time)

 

[kvanlaan]

Dai Li, yours is a difficult position (especailly if you are from a more traditional family). There is not only the Biblical perspective on things, but the cultural as well. You are judged in your actions by family and friends (and whether or not you are a stumbling block) by two standards: To honour your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord gives you, and also that the superior man, while his parents are alive, reverently nourishes them; and, when they are dead, reverently sacrifices to them. His thought to the end of his life is how not to disgrace them. The question is how to walk the fine line to be salt and light to both while remaining true to the Word of God. Your mother's heresy is not uncommon. (Wo jian guo zheige hao ji ci zai Zhong Guo. Fu qin mei you Yesu, Mu qin you bu dui de xiang fa, dan shi ta shuo ta shi Yesu de tu di.) I know this must cause you great inner conflict, but the answer is a deeper immersion in the Word - it will bring you peace and a right path that reason and argument can never bring. Look at the life of Christ (but as a human servant, not as Christ the Son of God). You do not have the authority to throw the money changers from the house of the Lord, especially when it is your mother. But a quiet, Christlike example to her will bring you so much closer to where you want to take her than a combatative argument.

He Shang Di yi qi qu, xiong di.

 

[chuckd]

I've came to know that she reasoned her way to heresy by two premises
1) God is one means God has one person;
2) The seemingly three persons of God is a mystery to us, but we have john 3:13 to say that Christ descended from heaven and is at heaven at the same time, and in Isaiah 9:6 Christ being called as the "Everlasting Father"

so---the seemingly three persons of God is unveiled by the God's power to be at different forms and at different places at the same time. So God is Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Dai, maybe using some definitions would prove helpful. The Trinity is not three persons at the same time as one person. The Trinity is one in essence, but three persons. (I believe that terminology is correct)

WSC Q. 6. How many persons are there in the godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

Get yourself a NKJV and read I John 5:7 "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one." This verse most clearly proves an "essential ontological unity" of the three persons. (I advocate for the manuscript line behind the KJV/Geneva -- save that study for another time)

Also Basil's letter referring to the person vs. essence: NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

 

[awretchsavedbygrace]

Remember to be gentle.

 

[cajunhillbilly53]

Remember to be gentle.

Gentleness will go a long way for sure

 

[DyeLi]

I am sorry for responding so late but it's amazing so many of you came here to give me instructive advice. Praise God for this!

Yeah, from your posts I draw the conclusion that in this issue deeds worth more than words. It's extremely hard when I heard she saying something wrong and suppressing my urge to confront her with the doctrine of trinity. I did confront her tonight and it really didn't go well, as one can expect after reading these posts. However that event confirmed your advice and I think here is what I shall do:

1.Pray to God frequently to change my mother's heart, and fulfill my responsibilities as her son to show her my love, care and honor them. Same with my father. This is exactly where I should work on because I miserably fail this everyday. I literally owe everything directly to them, but I always, always take it for granted. I really can't do much by debating in this matter, also. First, she just think my words don't mean much because I am her child and it was her brought me to Christ and second she has a really serious pentecostal problem as to think her thoughts are from God's inspiration and she also got a little system on this issue. I do appreciate your advice and testimonies on being prayerful and patient. I believe that is the best way to deal with it. God is the one who changes people in their most fundamental thought.

2.Equip myself with a better understanding with the doctrine of Trinity. I will study the sources you provide here and read other articles about trinity, oneness pentecostalism, and Sabellism. In our discussions I realize I cannot give a good account of this doctrine. Although argument is not very helpful in this matter, I really need to do better if another chance comes. We discussed this for like three times and it's just like repeating what we've said during the last time. I can tell how the Trinity means God in three persons, but I cannot speak clearly how God is also in one substance. I will just fulfill my responsibilities and let God do the effectual work.


Yes, I will also seek help from God's word to better understand His sovereignty and mercy.

 

[KevinInReno]

I would say some of the advice I don't completely agree with. I would pray if I fell into heresy my own children would "honor me", when they were mature in their faith, by gently exhorting me back. Now I do agree it should be done with care, also there should be some reason to plant seed... for this reason I don't often plant seed with my father who is fully Roman Catholic and pelagian in his thinking, but my mother... little to her knowledge gets tidbits from TULIP in her theological conversations with me all the time, and you know what... her understanding of for example depravity is leaps and bounds better than it was just a few years ago. She essentially has a reformed understanding of Total Inability when pinned down on the issue... this from a woman who used to instruct me in the same pelagian vein as my father.