podcasts / In Our Time / episode / question
Question

Why did Isaac Newton and other Unitarians reject the Trinity, per Janet Soskice?

Answered from Archive: Trinity · In Our Time · 2026-10-08

Janet Soskice says Unitarians such as Isaac Newton rejected the Trinity for the same reason Jews and Muslims do: if Jesus is not God incarnate, the doctrine is unnecessary. Martin Palmer adds that Unitarians still describe experiencing one God in different ways, and Graham Ward says anyone holding a God both beyond and within the world faces the same tension.

▸In their words

“If you do believe that Jesus is God incarnate, you've got to have something like the Trinity.” Janet Soskice · at 47:14 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on In Our Time (2026-10-08). Read the whole episode summary →

▸More from this episode

Q1Where did the idea of the Trinity come from, according to Janet Soskice on In Our Time?Q2What was the Council of Nicaea in 325 trying to settle, according to Martin Palmer?Q3Why does the filioque clause divide the Orthodox and Western churches, per Martin Palmer?Q4What does Andrei Rublev's Trinity icon mean, according to Martin Palmer on In Our Time?Q5How did Julian of Norwich describe the Trinity, according to Janet Soskice?Q6Why do Judaism and Islam reject the Trinity, according to Martin Palmer?Q8Why did the Trinity matter to 20th-century theologians, according to Graham Ward?
Transcribe your links. Paste a YouTube, Google Drive or podcast link and WhipScribe gives you the transcript. Transcribe a link →