At Forty Years Old I Best Saw the Light\u2013Trinity Doctrine No Long Seemed Right<\/a>.\u201d) I had never questioned the church teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity. I had also been taught its corollary\u2013the Hypostatic Union of Christ. That means that Jesus had two natures, divine and human, and that whenever he said or did anything, it was always from the perspective of one of these two natures. In this case, I had been taught that Jesus said that from the perspective of his human nature. Thus, he knew the time of his return in divine nature, but he did not know it in his human nature.<\/p>\nFor the first time in my life, I actually blurted out to myself audibly, \u201cthat makes Jesus look like a liar. He said he didn\u2019t know the time of his return, yet he really did know it.\u201d I quickly concluded that I needed to look into this matter. And I did, seriously.<\/p>\n
I first did so by buying a red-letter New Testament (Jesus\u2019 saying in red) and reading only Jesus\u2019 sayings in the New Testament gospels. I was looking for only one thing\u2013did Jesus ever say straight out that he was God. I was astonished to discover that he never did.<\/p>\n
Now I began to employ this First Principles Thinking that Elon Musk talks about. I had always assumed<\/em> that Jesus said in the Bible that he was God. Moreover, I had been taught that he did. But when you look at what scholars cite in Jesus\u2019 sayings to prove that he said he was God, it is just about zero.<\/p>\nAfter about two years into this study, I decided that, according to the Bible, Jesus never said he was God, and it is questionable if anything else in the Bible says he was\/is God. Eventually, I became certain that it doesn\u2019t. In so concluding, I was using First Principles Thinking by questioning assumptions and establishing new knowledge for me.<\/p>\n
But it didn\u2019t take me long to learn that it wasn\u2019t really new knowledge. There never was a church doctrine of the Trinity until it was developed by three theologians in the 370s and made official by the Catholic Church in 381. Thus, for hundreds of years Christians had never heard of the idea that God is three co-equal and co-eternal persons, who are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
And it appears from all literature available to us that Christians never began thinking Jesus is God until the early second century CE, thus at least seventy years after Jesus lived here. Moreover, even when it became common for Christians to think Jesus was God, during the second and third centuries, they all believed he was not God to the same degree as the Father. For they understood Jesus\u2019 statement literally, \u201cThe Father is greater than I\u201d (John 14.28), so that Jesus was not as great as God was.<\/p>\n
Actually, I was going back to the first principles of Christian Faith. They were that God is one, a single person, The Almighty, the Most High, and Jesus was his agent whom he sent, like he sent prophets before him, to preach salvation, heal people, and die on the cross for our sins. That is the New Testament gospel, not that God is three persons. For Jesus had prayed to the Father, saying, \u201cAnd this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent\u201d (John 173). This is the First Principle of knowing the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chris Anderson is the curator of TED, a non-profit organization that promotes innovative thinking and entrepreneurship. He recently interviewed Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and Space X. Musk told Anderson he attributes his success to mostly two things: hard work (1oo hours per week the past 15 years, which he recently scaled back to 85 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1477,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[4057,4060],"class_list":["post-8554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trinity","tag-elon-musk","tag-first-principles"],"yoast_head":"\n
Discovering the God of the Bible with First Principles Thinking<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Elon Musk credits his success to observing First Principles Thinking. It is to question assumptions, thus the opposite of assuming that common assumption are right. That's what I did, as a Trinitarian, in discovering that God is only one person and Jesus is his agent.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Discovering the God of the Bible with First Principles Thinking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Elon Musk credits his success to observing First Principles Thinking. It is to question assumptions, thus the opposite of assuming that common assumption are right. That's what I did, as a Trinitarian, in discovering that God is only one person and Jesus is his agent.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kermit Zarley Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-03-21T23:00:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/347\/2019\/03\/ElonMusk.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kermit Zarley\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kermit Zarley\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/\",\"name\":\"Discovering the God of the Bible with First Principles Thinking\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-03-21T23:00:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-21T23:00:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02\"},\"description\":\"Elon Musk credits his success to observing First Principles Thinking. It is to question assumptions, thus the opposite of assuming that common assumption are right. That's what I did, as a Trinitarian, in discovering that God is only one person and Jesus is his agent.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Discovering the God of the Bible with First Principles Thinking\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/\",\"name\":\"Kermit Zarley Blog\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02\",\"name\":\"Kermit Zarley\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf8e1a5dcb179e76f0c39d3d75e849bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf8e1a5dcb179e76f0c39d3d75e849bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kermit Zarley\"},\"description\":\"Born & reared in Seattle, WA., Kermit lived 38 years in metro Houston, now in Scottsdale, AZ. He graduated from University of Houston w\/ BBA in 1963 and played on the PGA Tour full time from 1964-1982 and Senior\/Champions Tour in 1991-2001. Kermit co-founded the PGA Tour Bible Study in 1965 and was senior leader most of next 17 years. Kermit has three adult children and six grandchildren.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/kermitzarley.com\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/author\/kermitzarleyblog\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Discovering the God of the Bible with First Principles Thinking","description":"Elon Musk credits his success to observing First Principles Thinking. It is to question assumptions, thus the opposite of assuming that common assumption are right. That's what I did, as a Trinitarian, in discovering that God is only one person and Jesus is his agent.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Discovering the God of the Bible with First Principles Thinking","og_description":"Elon Musk credits his success to observing First Principles Thinking. It is to question assumptions, thus the opposite of assuming that common assumption are right. That's what I did, as a Trinitarian, in discovering that God is only one person and Jesus is his agent.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/","og_site_name":"Kermit Zarley Blog","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley","article_published_time":"2019-03-21T23:00:23+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/347\/2019\/03\/ElonMusk.jpg"}],"author":"Kermit Zarley","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kermit Zarley","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/","name":"Discovering the God of the Bible with First Principles Thinking","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-03-21T23:00:23+00:00","dateModified":"2019-03-21T23:00:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02"},"description":"Elon Musk credits his success to observing First Principles Thinking. It is to question assumptions, thus the opposite of assuming that common assumption are right. That's what I did, as a Trinitarian, in discovering that God is only one person and Jesus is his agent.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2019\/03\/discovering-the-true-god-with-first-principles-thinking\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Discovering the God of the Bible with First Principles Thinking"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/","name":"Kermit Zarley Blog","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/8393f2e63455a2915f7ca277bf5a5d02","name":"Kermit Zarley","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf8e1a5dcb179e76f0c39d3d75e849bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bf8e1a5dcb179e76f0c39d3d75e849bf?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Kermit Zarley"},"description":"Born & reared in Seattle, WA., Kermit lived 38 years in metro Houston, now in Scottsdale, AZ. He graduated from University of Houston w\/ BBA in 1963 and played on the PGA Tour full time from 1964-1982 and Senior\/Champions Tour in 1991-2001. Kermit co-founded the PGA Tour Bible Study in 1965 and was senior leader most of next 17 years. Kermit has three adult children and six grandchildren.","sameAs":["http:\/\/kermitzarley.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kermit.zarley"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/author\/kermitzarleyblog\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/347\/2019\/03\/ElonMusk.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n