Robyn Lebron God or Gods Because the Quakers teach that each person develops his own understanding of the truth, the teachings about God and Jesus also vary from one group to another The conservative groups believe “there is a Trinity of the Father (God), the Son (Christ), and the Holy Spirit that comprises God; personal and incorporeal Jesus Christ is God’s only Ǥ God is manifest within all as the light Jesus possessed the light to the highest degree and is “ ” But the more liberal teachings vary from belief in a personal God as an incorporeal spirit to questioning the belief in a personal God Beliefs vary from the literal to the symbolic belief in Jesus Christ as God’s incarnation Most believe we are all sons and daughters of God, with the main focus on experiencing and listening to God, the Light within, accessible to all Friends generally believe that firsthand knowledge of God is only possible through that which is experienced or inwardly revealed to the individual human being through the working of God’s quickening Spirit.4 Christ Seventeenth-century Friends shared with other Christians a firm belief in the unique, messianic nature of Jesus of Nazareth They teach that the word of God is not the Bible, but Jesus Christ Himself For George Fox it was central to the people of God to let everyone know, whether Jews, Turks, Christians, or heathens, that there is no salvation in any other name under heaven, whereby they must be saved but in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, crucified and raised from the dead As with their other teachings, diverse personal beliefs have developed over time Some Quakers believe that Jesus Christ was just a great religious leader who was sent by God to show us the example of the kind of life we should live And some Quakers see Christ as a source of our salvation You will, in general, find some disagreement among Friends about whether there was a virgin birth, whether various miracles were supernatural occurrences or religious embellishments, whether Jesus was the Son of God or just one of God’s children, etc You will however find agreement that those differences are Ǥ5 200