The trinity doctrine.
The word Trinity describes the belief in Christian theology that the one God of the universe is comprised of three persons: the Father, the Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. It has been the conviction of Christians throughout the centuries that this is what the Bible teaches.
The doctrine of the Trinity was first thoroughly and formally articulated in the fourth century in response to perceived distortions of biblical teaching on the subject, but the fundamental beliefs of the doctrine can be seen from the first century. And while no systematic presentation of the doctrine can be found in the New Testament, Christians argue that it can be shown that the Bible teaches that the Father is God, the Son, Jesus Christ, is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, all the while affirming that there is but one God.
The word Trinity is not in the Bible. Church father Tertullian coined it in 192 C.E. M
Historical Development
No matter who you listen to, the doctrine of the Trinity has proven to be the most technical and complex teaching in the history of church dogma. To assess it, we need to review briefly its historical development, which occurred in the following stages:
1st century: Advocating a strict Jewish monotheism, that God is one (Person or Being), so that only the Father is God. Thus, Jesus Christ is not identified as God.
2nd century: God is two un-equal Personsthe Father and His inferior Logos-Son. Jesus Christ temporally preexisted as the Logos-Son prior to His incarnation as man.
3rd century: God is two un-equal Personsthe Father and His inferior Logos-Son. But the Father generates the Logos-Son to become an eternally preexisting Peron.
Early 4th century: God is two co-equal and co-eternal Persons: the Father and the Son. So far, nothing has been decided about the constitution of the Holy Spirit.
Late 4th century: God is three co-equal and co-eternal Personsthe Father, the Son, and the Holy Spiritand all three members of this Trinity share the same substance.
So, the final formula of the doctrine of the Trinity did not obtain until the late 4th century. (For a semantic discussion of words of Church authorities used to identify the one God and distinguish the three members of the Trinity from this Godhead.
see subheads The Nicene Creed and The Council of Constantinople in Chapter Two of The Restitution of Jesus Christ.)
Constantine the Great called the First Council of Nicaea(325), composed of 300 religious leaders. Three centuries after Jesus lived, this council was given the task of separating divinely inspired writings from those of questionable origin.
This was the setting in which the doctrine of the Trinity emerged. In those early decades after Jesus Christ's ministry, death and resurrection, and spanning the next few centuries, various ideas sprang up as to His exact nature. Was He man? Was He God? Was He God appearing as a man? Was He an illusion? Was He a mere man who became God? Was He created by God the Father, or did He exist eternally with the Father?
A classic example of this was the dispute over the nature of Christ that led the Roman emperor Constantine the Great to convene the Council of Nicaea (in modern-day western Turkey) in A.D. 325.
Arius, a priest from Alexandria, Egypt, taught that Christ, because He was the Son of God, must have had a beginning and therefore was a special creation of God. Further, if Jesus was the Son, the Father of necessity must be older.
Opposing the teachings of Arius was Athanasius, a deacon also from Alexandria. His view was an early form of Trinitarianism wherein the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were one but at the same time distinct from each other.
With the emperor's approval, the Council rejected the minority view of Arius and, having nothing definitive with which to replace it, approved the view of Athanasiusalso a minority view. The church was left in the odd position of officially supporting, from that point forward, the decision made at Nicaea to endorse a belief held by only a minority of those attending.
The groundwork for official acceptance of the Trinity was now laidbut it took more than three centuries after Jesus Christ's death and resurrection for this unbiblical teaching to emerge!
