Is the Trinity a Human Invention, or a Scriptual Truth?

I've been chatting to a member of the LDS recently, about whether or not there's such a thing as the Trinity.

He believes that the Trinity is a human invention and is not from the Bible. He believes that the Father is a God, and the creator of all things, that the Son is a god and is the offspring of the Father and that the Holy Spirit is not God at all.

I believe that there is only one God, and he consists of 3 distinct persons which form the one God that He is, and they are Father, Son and Spirit, and they work together in perfect unity. I believe that the Trinity is a difficult concept to grasp, and one we probably won't fully grasp until the next life when we meet God face to face, but until then it's one we should accept and find out more about it, as it is part of the nature of God.

Now, before I go any further, I want to make it really clear why I'm writing this post. I am not writing it to mock, anger, offend or for any other negative reason. I like and respect this person, and believe that he is learned and intelligent (not that it would matter if he wasn't, either!). The sole purpose of this post is to help me express my understanding of the issue to my friend (and anyone else who is interested) in a manner which gives me time and space to think and express what I'm trying to say as clearly as possible, so that we may both have a better understanding of what the Scripture really says about who God is.

One more point before I begin, I think it would be helpful to establish the common ground that we already have (if I'm wrong on either of these, please correct me!):
1) We both believe that the Bible is the word of God, that it is authoritative, and that it is inerrant.
2) We both believe that some translations of the Bible have been poor, leading to misunderstandings. We both believe that these matters can be settled by going back to the Greek and Hebrew Bible from which we have recieved our English translations.

So, does the Bible tell us that Jesus is both the Son of God and God? Or does the Bible tell us that Jesus is a god created by the Father? Below are several reasons why I think the answer is yes to the first and no to the second.

1) Let's start with John 1, which me and my friend have already started discussing, but I don't think we've finished with. Here are the first 15 verses of John 1:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known."


My argument from this is that we have 3 clear statements from this first chapter of John that Jesus is indeed God. Check out verse 1, which says that the Word (Jesus) was God (past tense as it is talking about in the beginning, this is not saying that he is no longer God).
Verse 3 says that through him all things were made, which means that Jesus cannot have been created, otherwise we would have a contradiction.
And verse 18 again says that Jesus is God.

Now, the counter argument to verse 1 is that the text could also read, "and the Word was a god", as in the Greek there is no indefinate article ('a'), and so we cannot know if it is indeed simply saying, "the Word was God" or, "the Word was a god". Fair enough, that is a valid point if you're just looking at verse 1. But given the context of verse 3 and verse 18, it seems that, "the Word was God" seems to be the correct translation.

To my friend, please feel free to give any counter points, or to direct me to anywhere where I can read these counter points, I would be really interested to see what people have to say. It seems however, that Scripture is in favour of Jesus being God here.

2) Have a look at Revelation 22:13 where Jesus is speaking (context shows that it is him speaking), "¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."
  
Here again we see Jesus as eternal and uncreated.

3) Jesus calls himself "I am" multiple times, which is referencing Exodus 3, where God calls himself I AM WHO I AM (or, I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE), which I think is meant to signify His eternal, unchanging nature.

A clear example is John 8:58-59:
^"58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” ⁵⁹ At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds."

Why did they want to stone him? Because they knew he was calling himself God.


4) Jesus equates knowing and seeing Jesus to knowing and seeing the Father, take John 14:6-11 as an example:

^"6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
⁸ Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
⁹ Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ¹⁰ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. ¹¹ Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves."

There are more examples I could give, but I reckon this is enough for now, I'm not trying to overwhelm anyone with such a large amount of information they just don't have time to respond to it all.

Now, one final point, which is about the Trinity more generally and should also hopefully address your point about Elohim (my friend was saying that the Hebrew "Elohim" refers to Jesus. He also said that when we see "God" in the Old Testament it mostly "Elohim" rather than "Yaweh", so we're usually hearing about Jesus rather than the Father. (I partly agree and partly disagree, I'll explain..))

2 examples from Genesis 1+2 that I believe help us see that God is a multi-person, but one God, God:


1) Check out Genesis 1:26 where God refers to Himself in the plural:
"²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”"

Here God (Hebrew Elohim) says let us create mankind in our image.

2) Then when God (Hebrew Elohim) creates mankind in His (singular, so we have Him both able to refer to Himself as "our" meaning multiple persons, and yet be one) image, he creates them not just as man, but as man and woman, suggesting diversity:
^"27 So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them" "

Elohim refers to Himself as "our" here, suggesting He's more than just one person, but He is indeed one God, as He's also referred to as the singular, "he".

Also Elohim is there in the beginning, Genesis 1:1-2:
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." (NIV)

"In the beginning Elohim created heaven and earth.
² The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep water. The Ruach Elohim was hovering over the water." (Names of God Bible)

If you're willing, have a think, chat and pray about it. I hope this has been interesting for you, and I look forward to hearing your response :)

(Actually, I've just thought of one more thing I haven't responded to! My friend said that the Bible frequently refers to "God" and "Jesus" in the same sentence, talking about different persons, take Acts 7:55-56 for example:
"⁵⁵ But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶ “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”"

Fair point, but then think back to John 1, where God and the Word are referred to seperately as well, and yet it says that the Word (Jesus) is God. Or John 14, where the same thing effectively happens. I think when we see instances such as Acts 7, where it says God, we should be thinking Father, not that Jesus isn't God.)