2.0 BACKGROUND TO THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY

The historical record is overwhelming that the Church of the

first three centuries did not worship God as a coequal,

coeternal, consubstantial, one-substance, three in one mysterious

God head. The early Church worshiped one God and believed in a

Subordinate Son. “The Trinity originated with Babylon, and was

passed on to most of the world’s religions. This polytheistic

(believe in more than one god) Trinitarianism was intertwined

with Greek religions and philosophy and slowly worked its way

into Christian thought and Creeds some 300 years after Christ.”1

The idea of God “God the Son” is a product of Babylonia paganism

and mythology that was drafted into Christianity. Worshipping

“God the Son” is idolatry, and idolatry is biblically condemned.

It breaks the first commandment of God, of not having any gods

before him (Exo. 20:3). Then three centuries after Christ, the

corrupt emperor Constantine forced the minority opinion of the

Trinity upon the Council of Nicea.2 The Christian Church went

1 Soskie, Janet Martin. “Biblical Trinitarianism: The Purpose of being Orthodox” in Quash, Ben and Ward, Michael (eds). Heresies and How to Avoid Them, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publisher Inc., 2007. P122.2 Ibid. p.123

1

downward from there; in fact some of the Creeds and Councils

actually contradict each other, and yet most Christians continued

to teach and believe the doctrine that God is a coequal, one

substance, mysterious three in one triune Godhead and that Jesus

Christ is God and that the trinity is the corner stone of

Christianity.3

3.0 BACKGROUND TO THE TRINITARIAN HERESIES

The doctrine in which the Trinity emerged in those early decades

after Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection and spanning the

next few centuries varies from ideas that sprang up as to

Christ’s exact nature. Was He man? Was He God? Was He God

appearing as 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.4 The original Church was lost as new

beliefs; many ideas were borrowed or adopted from pagan religion

which replaced the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.

4.0 MONARCHIANISM

3 Ibid.4 Berkhof, Louis. The History of Christian Doctrine, London: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1937. P.231.

2

At the end of the first century, Judaic heretics, Corinthians and

the Ebionites, holding rigidly to the doctrine of one person in

God denied the divinity of Christ.5 Towards the end of the second

century, the so-called Monarchanists taught that there was only

one person in God. According to its attitudes towards the person

of Jesus Christ, Monarchianism falls into two main divisions;

dynamic or Adoptionist monarchianism and Patripassionic or

modalist monarchianism.

4.1 DYNAMIC OR ADOPTIONIST MONARCHIANISM

It teaches that Christ is a mere man even though born in a

supernatural manner from the Holy Ghost and of the Blessed

Virgin. At His baptism, He was equipped by God with divine power

in an extraordinary measure and was adopted by Him in place of a

Son. The principal exponents of this erroneous doctrine were

Theodotus of Byzantine, who brought this doctrine to Rome in 190

and was ex-communicated from the Church by Pope Victor II; Paul

of Samo Sata, Bishop of Antioch who was disposed as heretic at

5 Ludwig, OTT. Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma Vol. 1, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers Inc., 1974. P.51

3

the Synod at Antioch in the year 268 and Bishop Phontius of

Sirnum, who was disposed by the synod of Sirnum in 351.6

4.2 PATRIPASSIANIC OR MODALIST MONARCHIANISM

This teaching accepts the true Divinity of Christ, but admits

only one person in God by teaching that the Father had become man

in Jesus Christ and had suffered. The principal representatives

of this pernicious teaching were Noetus who was refuted by

Tertullian.7 Sebellius extended his false doctrine to the Holy

Ghost, and taught that in God there was one Hypostasis and three

corresponding to His three different Modes of revelation. The

Uni-personal God reveals Himself as a Father in the creation, as

a Son in the redemption, as the Holy Ghost in the works of

Sanctifications. Pope Cellustus (217-222 A.D) excluded Sabbellius

from the ecclesiastical community; Sabellianism was combated in a

rather unhappy fashion by the Alexandrian Bishop Dionysius the

Great and was authoritatively condemned by Pope Dionysius.6 Ibid., 537 Ibid.

4

5.0 SUBORDINATIONISM

In contrast to Sallian modalism, Subordinationsim admits three

different persons in God, but denies the consubstantiality of the

second and the third person with the Father, and therefore their

divinity; there were two groups – Arianism and Macedonianism.

5.1 ARIANISM

The Alexandrine presbyter Arius (336) taught that the logo does

not exist from all eternity. He is not generated from the Father,

but is a creature of the Father, produced by Him from nothing

before all other creatures. According to His essence, He is

unlike the Father, immutable and capable of development. He is

not, in the proper and true sense, God, but only the improper

sense, inso far as He, in anticipation of His merits was adopted

by the Father as a Son. This erroneous doctrine or teaching was

condemned at the first general council at Nicea.8

The semi-Arians took up a middle position between the strict

Arians (Anhomonious) and the defenders of the Nicene Cree

(Homousious) they believed that it favoured Sellianism, but

8 Ibid.

5

admitted that the Logos was similar to the Father …called

Homoians either similar in all things or in nature.9

5.2 MACEDONIANISM

The Pneumatomachi (combats against the spirit) a sect of semi-

Arians, which is said to have been founded by the semi-Arian

Bishop Macedoniius, extended the notion of subordinationsim to

the doctrine of the Holy Ghost to be mere creature, a mere

ministering spirit like the angels. Macedonius was condemned at

the Synod of Alexandra under the presidency of St. Athanasius at

the second general Council of Constantinople.10

6.0 TRINITARIANISM

The proponents of this doctrine were

6.1 JOHANNES PHILOPONUS

A Christian commentator on Aristotle who identified nature and

person and thus came to monophysiticism and in the doctrine of

the trinity to Trinitarianism. The three divine persons are

according to him three individuals of the God-head as three men

9 ibid10 Ibid.55

6

are three individual of the species, man. Thus, he would replace

numerical unity of the divine nature by a mere specific unity.11

6.2 ROSELIN

A Canon of Compiegne, who was a modalist. According to him, the

individual alone possess reality. He therefore taught that the

three Divine persons were three separate relatives, which are

connected with one another morally and through the agreement of

the Will and Power, just as three angels or three human souls

might be.12

6.3 GILBERT OF POI

He posited a real difference between deus and divinitas and a real

difference between the divine persons and the divine essence, so

that there would result in quaternity in God (three persons plus

God-head). This teaching which is not obvious in Gilbert’s

writings was rejected at the council of Rheinus.13

6.4 THE ABBOT JOACHIM OF FIOR

11 Ibid.12 Ibid.13 Ibid.

7

Joachim conceived unity of the three divine persons as a

collective unite. His teaching was rejected at the forth Lateran

Council (1215 A.D) and the teaching of Peter Lanbadusais which he

had attacked was solemnly approved.14

6.5 ANTON GUNTHER

He taught that the absolute determined itself three times

successively in a process of self-development as thesis and

antitheses and synthesis. The divine substance, he asserts are

attracted through consciousness, to one another and thus make up

a ….

7.0 PROTESTANTISM

Although Luther contested the traditional Trinitarian

terminology, he held fast to belief in the trinity. The

subjectivism preached by him, however, led finally to his denial

of the dogma of the trinity. Socianism established by Faustus

14 Ibid., 56

8

Sozzmi from its basic rationalistic attitude expounded a strict

unitary concept of God, which did not admit of a plurality of

Divine persons. It declares Christ to be a mere man, the Holy

Ghost a uni-personal divine force.15

The rationalist theology holds generally to the traditional

terminology but sees in the three persons only the

personification of the Divine attributes, such as might, wisdom,

and goodness. According to Harrack, the Christian concepts of the

Trinity developed from the polemic between Christianity and

Judaism. At first only the duplex formula, “God and Christ”

exited as antithesis to God and Moses, later, the Holy Ghost was

added.

8.0 DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRINITY

The term “Trinity” is not found in the Bible. Theophilus of

Antioch around 180 A.D, first used the Greek term Trias (a set of

three) in reference to God, His Word and His Wisdom. However,

Tertullian in 215 A.D. was the first to state this doctrine using

15 Ibid.

9

the Latin term, Trinitas.16 This doctrine was developed by councils

and Church Fathers.

8.1 THE COUNCIL OF NICENE

The argument brought by Arius divided the Church. Emperor

Constantine was deeply upset by the division, not least because

it threatened the stability of the Empire. And so he summoned a

conference of all the bishops of the Church to the first

ecumenical council in Nicea in Asia Minor. Few representatives

from the Western Churches made it to the meeting in 325 A.D.17

“The council agreed that Jesus is truly God and so it published a

Creed stating the Christian faith in a way that thoroughly

condemned Arianism.”18 According to Schwobel, “their view of

faith included rational activity; it involved “acts of

recognition, apprehension and conception of a very basic

intuitive kind in the responsible assent of the mind of truth

inherent in God’s self-revelation to mankind.”19

16 Toom, Tarm. Classical Trinitarian Theology, London: T and T Clark, 2007. P.6217 Schreck, Alann. The Compact History of the Catholic Church, United State of America: Servant Book, 1987. P.2318 John, Macramara et al. “Logic and the Trinity” in Faith and Philosophy, No. 1, 1994. P.11519 Shwobel, Christopher (ed). Trinitarian Theology Today: Essays on Being and Act. Edinburgh: Tand T Clark, 1995, p. 109

10

Little discussion took place at Nicea council regarding the Holy

Spirit, there was not as much agreement on the relation of the

Spirit in the Trinity as there was regarding the Son and again

Athanasius and others who held to an orthodox view understood

that once it established that “Jesus is of the same essence as

the Father, it naturally follows from the biblical data that the

Spirit is as well.”20

8.2 THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

The first council of Constantinople was a council of Christian

bishops convened in Constantinople in 381 A.D, by the Roman

Emperor Theodosius I. This second ecumenical council was an

effort to attain consensus in the Church an assembly representing

all of Christendom confirmed the Nicene Creed, expounding the

doctrine thereof to produce the Nicene-Constantinopolitan

Creed.21

20 Schaff, Philip. The Creeds of Christendom, London: Baker Books House,1998. P.2921 Wand, J.W. A History of the Early Church to AD 500. London: J.W Arrow Smith Ltd, 1967.P. 47

11

There were 150 Eastern bishops present at the council and among

them were a handful of notable characters and the main work of

the council was to reestablish the doctrine that had been set

forth in the Nicene. They did this by writing a new Creed to

remove some of the languages of Nicene Creed that had proven

controversial or where orthodoxy was being challenged.22

One specific area where developed was in regard to the Holy

Spirit. The Council sought to use Biblical languages to describe

the Spirit so as to make the doctrine as palatable as possible to

all. Nevertheless, thirty six Macedonian Bishops left because

they were not willing to accept such high language for the Holy

Spirit. The foremost result of the council was the Creed of

Constantinople but it removed the anathema against Arianism.23

9.0 TEACHING OF THE CHURCH FATHERS

When the Trinitarian Faith of the Church was distilled and

proclaimed in what came to be called Nicene Creed, which

Christians continue to profess today as the symbol per excellence

of our faith. The task of……….. Theology at this stage moves from

22 Ibid., 4823 Berkhof Op cit., 128

12

being dogmatic where doctrines are formulated and promulgated

into what can be described as a more properly theological

stage.24

9.1 TERTULIAN

Tertullian took the Trinitarian theological reflection to another

stage of development arguing that God is to be understood as

three persons and one substance. Tertullian understood the three

persons’ roles in the divine economy: Father, Son, Spirit, with

the main stress on the unity of God.25

God is a Spirit, but a Spirit is a material thing made out of a

…..sort of matter. God came into creation and brings the Son into

existence, using a portion of the divine matter shared with Him,

brings into existence the Spirit. And the two of them are God’s

instruments. The Father is one entity, the Son is a second, and

the Spirit is a Third. Tertullian is hailed by Trinitarians for

his use of the term ‘Trinity’ which he taught, consists of three

persons with a common substance.26

24 McGuckni, John. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus: An Intellectual Biography, Crestwoood: St Vladimirs Seminary Press, 2001. P. 5925 Collins, Paul. The Trinity: A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: T and T Clark, 2008. p. 4926 Ibid., 52

13

9.2 GREGORY OF NYISSA

Gregory of Nyssa is known as one of the Cappadocian Fathers. He

distinguished between the three in terms of their origin and

mutual relations. The Father is … or cause; the Son is begotten

of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. They

recognized in ………against the charge of tritheism that the unicity

of the three persons expressed in their unity of activity or

common work.27

9.3 AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

Augustine brought a new level of understanding in Trinitarian

theology and had a profound influence on the development of the

Latin Trinitarian theology in particular.28 Appealing to the text

from Isaiah that “Unless you believe you will not understand”

(Isaiah 7:9).

27 Hunt, Ann. Trinity: Nexus of the Mysteries of Christian Faith. New York: Orbis Books, 2005.P.7228 Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography, Calofornia: University of CaliforniaPress, 2000. P.55

14

Augustine explicitly addresses the question of the unity of the

God head and the distinction of the persons, he expressly argues

against the notion that the substance of the trinity is anything

other than the Father, Son and Spirit. The Father, Son and Spirit

are the Trinity but they are only One God.29 He further

maintained that each of the divine persons possess the divine

nature in particular manner and thus in the operation of the

Godhead. As the Cappadocian Fathers have done, Augustine

distinguished the three in terms of relations or origin or mutual

relations within the Godhead. They are each in each, and all in

each, and each in all, and all in all, and all are one.30

9.4 THOMAS AQUINAS

Thomas Aquinas refashioned a richly experiential and intuitive

approach to the mystery of the Trinity that was the Augustinian

inheritance.31 Aquinas begins the mystery of the Trinity with the

consideration of the divine persons ad intra and finally to their

unison ad extra. Aquinas takes up Augustine’s experientially

29 Parson, Williams. Augustine Bishop of Hippo’s Letter. Vol.III, USA: Catholic University of America Press, 1953. P.30030 Ibid., 30231 McCabe, Herbet. Aquinas on the Trinity, London: Continuum, 2002. P.36

15

based psychological analogy in terms of the mental acts that

issue in word and love and transposes it into a metaphysical

understanding of God as the perfection of spiritual being, Pure

Act.32 Aquinas analogy of human understanding and loving for

explicating the mystery of the Trinity as three co-equals,

consubstantial divine persons, so co-inhering in each other as to

be one. According to Hunt, “it bits well with the biblical

teaching that the human person is created in the image of God and

therefore reflects in a pre-eminent way the mystery of God’s

being. For Aquinas, the relation, Paternity, Sonship and

Spirithood are real and distinct things in some sense “in” God

which constitute and distinguish the three persons of the

Trinity.33

9.5 JOHN DUNS SCOTUS

John Duns Scotus has one of the most compelling and powerfully

coherent accounts of the Trinity ever constructed. Realists about

universals hold that in addition to individual human person,

32 William, Stevenson. The Problem of Trinitarian Procession in Thomas Aquinas’ Roman Commentary. The Thomist Press, 2000. P. 61933 Hunt Op cit., 23

16

there is a universal thing or “common nature” called

“humanity.”34

Similarly, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three

exemplifications. That is, while three instances of humanity

amount to three, three exemplifications of divinity don’t amount

to three divine …, rather, each of the exemplification (Father,

Son and Holy Spirit) is the one God.35

10.0 DEVELOPMENT OF THE TRINITARIAN CREED

A Creed is a brief statement of faith to list important truths,

to clarify doctrinal points and to distinguish truth from error.

Creeds are usually worded to easily memorize. The word comes from

Latin word “Credo” meaning “I believe.” The Bible contains a

number of Creed like passages. For example, Jews used the Shema,

based on Deut. 6:4-9 as a creed, a concise statement of belief.36

As the early Church spread, there was a practical need for a

statement of Faith to help believers focus on the most important

doctrines of their Christian faith and as the Church grew,34 Cunninghan, David. These three are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1998., p 27135 Ibid., 27236 Alister, Mcrath. I Believe – Exploring the Apostles’ Creed, London: ………… 1984. P.78

17

heresies also grew and the early Christians needed to clarify the

definitive boundaries of the faith. Controversies develop over

the divinity of Jesus Christ. At the request of Emperor

Constantine, Christian Bishops from across the Eastern Roman

Empire, with a few from the West met at Nicea near Constantinople

to discuss the matter and they wrote their consensus in the form

of a Creed called the Creed of Nicea.

Another major council was held at Constantinople at which the

Creed of Niceas was expanded slightly to include a few more

doctrine, resulting to the Creed called the Nicene-

Constantinopolitan Creed. Christians also met in the city of

Chalcedon to discuss among many other thins various theories

about the divine nature of Jesus Christ and developed a Creed

called the Creed of Chalcedon. These three Creeds are…accepted

among Christians as consistent with the Bible and as statement of

true Christian orthodoxy or right teaching.37

11.0 ATHANASIAN CREED

37 Schaf Philip Op cit., 63

18

The so called Athanasian Creed is a widely adopted and beloved

formulation of the doctrine. It shows strong Augustinian

influence and is thought to be the product of an unknown early

6th century writer.38 Contemporary philosophical discussions often

begin with this creed as it puts Pro-Nicene Trinitarianism with a

memorable short and palpable paradoxical form.39

12.0 THE POST MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENT

With the 16th Century Protestant Reformation, many Christians re-

examined the New Testament and rejected many developments as

incompatible with apostolic doctrine, lacking adequate basis in

it, and often as contrary to reason as well. Initially, many

reformation leaders emphasized on the Trinitarian doctrine and

seemed unsure whether or not to confine to the waste bin as the

doctrine of papal authority.40

Magisterial reformation decisively fell in line on behalf of

creedal orthodoxy while other groups now describe it as radical

38 Johnson, J.F. The Athanasian Creed – Evangelical Dictionary of Theolgoy. Walter Elewell (ed), London: Baker Book House, 1984. P. 20139 Ibid., 20240 www.newadvent.org “History of the trinitarian Doctrine” in Standford Encyclopedia of philosophy (ND), Retrieved, 2/12/14.

19

reformation either downplayed it, or denied it as inconsistent

with the Bible and Reason.41

13.0 THE 20TH CENTURY DEVELOPMENT IN VATICAN II

Gaudium et Spes wraps up the council’s message by confessing the

Holy Trinity. Faith in the Trinity pervades the Council’s

teaching and not least in its account of the Church as a people

of God, the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit

(Lumen Gentium, no.17). After calling living hope the gift of the

Holy Spirit, the Council declares that all important and central

meaning of human existence to be that of glorifying God the

Father in the Church of which the Spirit is the soul and Christ

Jesus now to him who by the Power at work with us is able to

accomplish abundantly for more than we ask or imagine.

14.0 EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION (KINDLY WRITE THE CONLUSION)

N.B: ITS DOUBLE SPACE

8 TO 10 PAGES. SO EDITE TO REDUCE AS WELL

41 Gerald, Collins O. Spirituality of the Second Vatican Council, New York: Paulist Press,…p 48

20

21