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Michael Servetus—A Solitary Quest for the TruthAwake!—2006 | May
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He learned that Constantine and his successors had promoted false teachings that eventually led to the adoption of the Trinity as an official doctrine. At the age of 20, Servetus published his book On the Errors of the Trinity, a work that made him a principal target of the Inquisition.
Servetus saw things clearly. “In the Bible,” he wrote, “there is no mention of the Trinity. . . . We get to know God, not through our proud philosophical concepts, but through Christ.”c He also came to the conclusion that the holy spirit is not a person but, rather, God’s force in action.
Servetus did provoke some favorable response. Protestant Reformer Sebastian Franck wrote: “The Spaniard, Servetus, contends in his tract that there is but one person in God. The Roman church holds that there are three persons in one essence. I agree rather with the Spaniard.” Nevertheless, neither the Roman Catholic Church nor the Protestant churches ever forgave Servetus for challenging their central doctrine.
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Michael Servetus—A Solitary Quest for the TruthAwake!—2006 | May
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c In his work A Statement Regarding Jesus Christ, Servetus described the doctrine of the Trinity as perplexing and confusing and noted that the Scriptures contained “not even one syllable” in its support.
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Michael Servetus—A Solitary Quest for the TruthAwake!—2006 | May
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[Picture on page 19]
First page of “On the Errors of the Trinity”
[Credit Line]
From the book De Trinitatis Erroribus, by Michael Servetus, 1531
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