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The Two Treatises of Servetus on the Trinity: On the Errors of the Trinity, Seven Books, MDXXXI, Dialogues on the Trinity, Two Books, On the ... MDXXXII
302 pages, Paperback
First published May 8, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 17, 2014
I read the introduction, and decided to just read his second work on the Trinity, as it was supposed to be the refinement of his early and less polished work.
It's a theological text, and has a dry academic flavor to most of it. That said, he really did offer a compelling point of view: we ought to see the fullness of God in the body of Christ.
All the Scriptures are fulfilled in, and indeed are about, Christ. I walked away from reading Servetus' exposition with a renewed appreciation for Christ as the center. All these theological/philosophical ideas, terms, and questions seem to fade into the background as I focus on Christ as the revelation of God.
It's a theological text, and has a dry academic flavor to most of it. That said, he really did offer a compelling point of view: we ought to see the fullness of God in the body of Christ.
All the Scriptures are fulfilled in, and indeed are about, Christ. I walked away from reading Servetus' exposition with a renewed appreciation for Christ as the center. All these theological/philosophical ideas, terms, and questions seem to fade into the background as I focus on Christ as the revelation of God.
February 24, 2016
I read this for two reasons.
1. As Zadignose points out, Servetus got burned at the stake for this stuff, and as such his stuff should at least be read.
2. I needed something to read during my break and had finished the book I had with me already, and had a pdf of this that I printed out
I actually read this pdf:
http://www.teleiosministries.com/pdfs...
Which is only the first Treatise.
I feel bad giving this three stars, mostly because of the whole being-burned-at-the-stake-thing, caused in part, because of his "heretical" teachings on the trinity, of which this was the first work he published on the subject.
But, that said, this is super pedantic and really repetitive, and not overly convincing even from a purely argumentative perspective.
First, Servetus basically rejected the Trinity. Sort of. He basically thought that both Christ the spirit were simply manifestations of the eternal God, and that neither were their own separate entities. As such, he felt that Christ did not exist until the moment of conception, and as such did not fell that Christ himself was eternal. In truth, none of this is particularly shocking - and it's obvious from the text that Servetus thought he was really onto something, and that he really, passionately, felt that he was doing good work - and it's only really shocking to think that someone could, at one point in history have actually been put to death for this*. And really, he’s still a Trinitarian, he just talks about the three entities in different words than the doctrine of the time supported
Again though, his arguments here are pretty weak - he devotes a considerable amount of time arguing that that the "current" view of the trinity needed to be updated because it did not appeal to the followers of either Judaism or Islam, and in fact those followers were making fun of Christians for their beliefs. And for some reason he felt this was a convincing argument. The rest of his argument was basically centered around pronoun usage in the scriptures, and is both dry and unconvincing.
So, this is worth a look as a curiosity, and if you have time to kill, but not really for more than that.
*and also his rejection of infant baptism. and for being an asshole to Calvin. it actually feels like it was the last one that really did him in.
1. As Zadignose points out, Servetus got burned at the stake for this stuff, and as such his stuff should at least be read.
2. I needed something to read during my break and had finished the book I had with me already, and had a pdf of this that I printed out
I actually read this pdf:
http://www.teleiosministries.com/pdfs...
Which is only the first Treatise.
I feel bad giving this three stars, mostly because of the whole being-burned-at-the-stake-thing, caused in part, because of his "heretical" teachings on the trinity, of which this was the first work he published on the subject.
But, that said, this is super pedantic and really repetitive, and not overly convincing even from a purely argumentative perspective.
First, Servetus basically rejected the Trinity. Sort of. He basically thought that both Christ the spirit were simply manifestations of the eternal God, and that neither were their own separate entities. As such, he felt that Christ did not exist until the moment of conception, and as such did not fell that Christ himself was eternal. In truth, none of this is particularly shocking - and it's obvious from the text that Servetus thought he was really onto something, and that he really, passionately, felt that he was doing good work - and it's only really shocking to think that someone could, at one point in history have actually been put to death for this*. And really, he’s still a Trinitarian, he just talks about the three entities in different words than the doctrine of the time supported
Again though, his arguments here are pretty weak - he devotes a considerable amount of time arguing that that the "current" view of the trinity needed to be updated because it did not appeal to the followers of either Judaism or Islam, and in fact those followers were making fun of Christians for their beliefs. And for some reason he felt this was a convincing argument. The rest of his argument was basically centered around pronoun usage in the scriptures, and is both dry and unconvincing.
So, this is worth a look as a curiosity, and if you have time to kill, but not really for more than that.
*and also his rejection of infant baptism. and for being an asshole to Calvin. it actually feels like it was the last one that really did him in.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews