Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Yates: VINDICATION OF UNITARIANISM, Boston, 1816, p.p. 66-68.

“The unity of God, as one individual person, is denoted throughout the Bible by the almost constant use of singular pronouns, whenever any thought, action, attribute, or condition, is ascribed to the Supreme Being. In all languages the personal pronouns of the singular number are understood to apply only to one person.

Thus, if I were writing a letter, by employing the pronouns of the first person and singular number, I, Me, My, I should confine my assertions to myself as one individual person. By using the pronouns of the second person and singular number, Thou, Thee, Thy, I should indicate that my assertions were addressed to my correspondent as one individual person. By introducing the pronouns of the third person and singular number, He, Him, His, I should denote that it was one person only I was speaking of. If on the contrary, I were writing a letter in conjunction with any other intelligent being, we should use the pronouns We, Us, Our; and if I were writing anything of more than one person, I should say They, Them, Their. Such being the universal application of pronouns, it is evident, not only to those who have studied Greek and Hebrew, but to all who know the use and meaning of human speech, that throughout the whole Bible God is almost uniformly mentioned as one Person, this being implied in the almost constant use of singular pronouns

“The doctrine of the Unity of God is implied in every passage in which the personal pronouns of the singular number are used to denote the Supreme, Deity.... Thousands and tens of thousands of passages imply, by the use of the singular pronouns, that God is one person....” (pp. 66, 153)

Examples: God appears to Abraham: “I am the Almighty God; walk before Me, and be thou perfect, and I will make My Covenant between Me and thee” (Gen. 17:1-2). (Not, “We are Almighty God, walk before Us and be thou perfect, etc.”)

Levites address God: “Thou, even Thou, art Lord alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, and Thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worship Thee” (Neh. 9:6).

The Book of Hebrews in the New Testament: “But without faith it is impossible to please Him; for He that comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6).

The other passages which assert the Deity to be one Person by applying to him singular pronouns extend from the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation. Like the sands on the seashore they cannot be numbered for multitude. The testimony of Scripture is therefore consonant to the voice of reason that there is but one Supreme and Infinite Mind, the uncreated Yahweh, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac and of Jacob, who is alone the Eternal, Independent, and Immutable, the sole originator of all Life in the universe, the fountain of Life, perfection and happiness.”

Furthermore, thousands and thousands of similar passages throughout the Bible. Singular pronouns prove that God is a single Person. In three passages, God says “Let us...” These passages tell us that He was speaking to someone other than Himself, just as when we say “let us...” we are referring to someone other than ourselves.

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