History of the Trinity Trinity Definition: Within the nature of the One True God, there simultaneously exists three eternal Persons, namely, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three Persons are co-equals in all the attributes of the Divine Nature. This definition defines God, not as a family, but as a committee. But how did this doctrine come to exist in modern Christianity? In the preface to Edward Gibbons History of Christianity, it reads: If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians … was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the Trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief. Most theologians know that the Trinity doctrine is not scriptural. Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the canon. But nowhere do we find any Trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead. All Pagan religions from the time of Babylon have adopted in one form or another a Trinity doctrine or a triad or trinity of gods. In Babylon it was Nimrod, Semiramas, and Tammuz. In Egypt it was Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Within Israel paganism it was Kether, Hokhmah, and Binah. In Platos philosophy it was the Unknown Father, Nous/Logos, and the world soul. In the book, A Statement of Reasons, Andrews Norton says of the Trinity: We can trace the history of this doctrine, and discover its source, not in the Christian revelation, but in the Platonic philosophy … The Trinity is not a doctrine of Christ and his Apostles, but a fiction of the school of the later Platonists. Historians also know that the Trinity doctrine is not authorized in the New Testament. There is no evidence the Apostles of Jesus ever heard of a Trinity. The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity. Neither the word Trinity itself, nor such language as one in three, three in one, one essence or substance or three persons, is biblical language. The language of the doctrine is the language of the ancient Church, taken not from the Bible but from classical Greek philosophy. Long before the founding of Christianity the idea of a triune god or a god-in-three persons was a common belief in ancient religions. Although many of these religions had many minor deities, they distinctly acknowledged that there was one supreme God who consisted of three persons or essences. The Babylonians used an equilateral triangle to represent this three-in-one god, now the symbol of the modern three-in-one believers. The Greek triad was composed of Zeus, Athena and Apollo. These three were said by the pagans to agree in one. One of the largest pagan temples built by the Romans was constructed at Ballbek (situated in present day Lebanon) to their Trinity of Jupiter, Mercury and Venus. In Babylon the planet Venus was revered as special and was worshipped as a Trinity consisting of Venus, the moon and the sun. This triad became the Babylonian holy Trinity in the fourteenth century before Christ. Although other religions for thousands of years before Christ was born worshipped a triune god, the Trinity was not a part of Christian dogma and formal documents of the first three centuries after Christ. That there was no formal, established doctrine of the Trinity until the fourth century is a fully documented historical fact. Clearly, historians of church dogma and systematic theologians agree that the idea of a Christian Trinity was not a part of the first century church. The twelve apostles never subscribed to it or received revelation about it. So how then did a trinitarian doctrine come about? It gradually evolved and gained momentum in late first, second and third centuries as pagans, who had converted to Christianity, brought to Christianity some of their pagan beliefs and practices. When we turn to the problem of the doctrine of the Trinity, we are confronted by a peculiarly contradictory situation. On the one hand, the history of Christian theology and of dogma teaches us to regard the dogma of the Trinity as the distinctive element in the Christian idea of God, that which distinguishes it from the idea of God in Judaism and in Islam, and indeed, in all forms of rational Theism. Judaism, Islam, and rational Theism are Unitarian. On the other hand, we must honestly admit that the doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the early Christian-New Testament-message. Certainly, it cannot be denied that not only the word Trinity, but even the EXPLICIT IDEA of the Trinity is absent from the apostolic witness of the faith.. The doctrine of the Trinity itself, however, is not a Biblical Doctrine. Since the doctrine is unscriptural, it took an emperor to make Christianity start embracing the concept. It was at this stage that Constantine made his momentous suggestion. Might not the relationship of Son to Father be expressed by the term homoousios (of the same substance). Its use, however, by the Sabellian bishops of Libya had been condemned by Dionysius of Alexandria in the 260s, and, in a different sense, its use by Paul of Samosata had been condemned by the Council of Antioch in 268. It was thus a loaded word as well as being unscriptural. Why Constantine put it forward we do not know. The possibility is that once again he was prompted by Hosius, and he may have been using it as a translation of the traditional view held in the West, that the Trinity was composed of Three Persons in one substance, without inquiring further into the meaning of these terms. The Emperor had spoken, and no one dared touch the creed during his lifetime. The great majority of the Eastern bishops found themselves in a false position.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 02:53:42 +0000
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