Author: Restitution Ministries
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Read the Restitution Ministries report of what occurred during their Bible Study meeting with SDA Greater Sydney Conference on the subject of the trinity.

The two discussions revealed that the theologians of the Greater Sydney Conference of SDA's appear to believe that the God of the SDA church - the trinity - is not the same God as the early pioneers of the church worshipped. Many theologians of the SDA Conference accept the fact that the church pioneers strongly rejected the doctrine of the trinity.

The early pioneers worshipped a God whom they believed had a physical bodily form. They also believed that a Divine Son was begotten from the Father in the days of eternity. The pioneers believed that the Father and Son were equally divine, equally powerful, equally immortal, equally omniscient (all-knowing) - equal in all the divine attributes, but that the Son of God, voluntarily submitted to the authority of His Father. These are the beliefs which Restitution Ministries still hold today, along with many other non-trinitarian believers who have been threatened with disfellowshipping, or who have been 'cast out' or who have resigned from the SDA church all over the world.

In contrast, the Greater Sydney Conference of SDA revealed at the meetings with Restitution Ministries, that they worship the trinity. They do NOT believe in a God who possesses a physical form .ie. a God who has arms, legs, face, eyes, hair as was seen in vision by John, Daniel, Ezekiel and Ellen White. The theologians believe that the form of God in these visions are simply a symbolic representation of a spirit being and that they are not to be accepted as revealing His physical form/body. Ellen White asked Jesus if the Father had a form like Jesus Himself had. Jesus replied, "I am in the express image of my Father's person." The SDA conference theologians also believe that the Father did not generate from His physical form, an only begotten Son before Christ's birth in Bethehem.

In maintaining these two positions, the Greater Sydney Conference of SDA is more in harmony with the Roman Catholic theology than with the SDA pioneers.

According to the Roman Catholic encycopedia, the god of the trinity does not possess any physical attributes, but is "pure spirit." The Catholic religion also teaches that the Son of God is 'eternally begotten.' This term means that the Son of God is not a real, begotten son, because he is always in the never-ending process of being 'begotten.' (His death is also an on-going, repeated, death because of the eucharist celebration which repeatedly occurs).