World Blog by humble servant.THE TRINITY: FACT OR FICTION?

THE TRINITY: FACT OR FICTION?

1. A Christian is one that believes things his reason cannot comprehend... 2. He believes three

to be one, and one to be three; a Father not to be elder than his Son; a Sonto be equal with his

Father; and one preceding from both to be equal with both; he believing three persons in one

nature, and two natures in one person. 3. He believes a virgin to be a mother of a son, and that

very son of hers to be her Maker. He believes Him to have been shut up in a narrow room

whom heaven and earth could not contain. He believes Him to have been born in time who

was and is from everlasting. He believes Him to have been a weak child, carried in arms, who

is the Almighty; and Him once to have died who only hath life and immortality in himself.

-Francis Bacon

(WORKS, vol vii, p.410)

Lord Francis Bacon, the seventeenth century philosopher and Chancellor of England who

wrote these words, was obviously a believer in the Trinity. The essay quoted consists of

thirty-four such “Christian Paradoxes” which illustrate his belief that:

“The more absurd and incredible any divine mystery is, the greater honor we do to God

in believing it....” (as quoted by James Yates, A VINDICATION OF UNITARIANISM,

Wells & Lilly, 1816, p. 278).

The Trinity has always been a mystery. In fact, it is usually described as a divine

mystery. When I was young I asked several good Christians to explain the Trinity to me.

I was told that the Trinity must be accepted on faith because we cannot always

understand the ways of God. Such an answer requires the acceptance that blind faith is a

virtue.

The concept of Trinity is that “the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is

God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God” (as stated in one of the critical

statements of the doctrine, the Athanasius Creed). These three are all thought of as

uncreated, eternal and omnipotent.

You can see why a confused student is told to accept on faith alone!

All this seems to have been confusing for early Christians too. Before the controversy

over the Trinity came to a head in the Councils of Nicene during the fourth century, there

were many different understandings of the nature of Christ, and an even wider range of

understandings about the Holy Spirit. There were those who believed that Jesus was just

a mortal man who had a very special relationship with God. Then there were those who

agreed with Theodosius of Byzantium that Jesus was born a mere man and attained the

ability to work miracles at the time of his baptism. Some of Theodosius’ students later

believed that Jesus became God after his resurrection. And then there were those known

as Monarchians who believed that God and Jesus were one and the same from the

beginning of time.

Many of those same views are still held today by various groups of Christians.

SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE

What do we know about the early belief in the Trinity? Clearly the strong Jewish

tradition among the first Christians slowed the initial development of the doctrine. This is

especially true since Jesus never preached it. The only place in the gospels that even hints

at the doctrine of the Trinity are the last verses of Matthew:

Jesus came forward and addressed them in these words: “Full

authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go,

therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in

the name ‘of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’”

[Matthew 28:18-19]

Nor is the doctrine stated in the Epistles or the Acts of the Apostles. In fact, there is no

place in the Testaments, Old or New, which speaks directly of the Trinity.

The whole concept also runs contrary to many verses and themes in the Bible. The most

obvious of these is monotheism itself. The next few verses demonstrate this point clearly.

Jesus made it clear that there is only one God:

Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God....

[John 17:3]

God is ‘Almighty.’ God uses this word only as a description of Himself:

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to

him and said: “I am God the Almighty....”

[Genesis 17:1]

‘Almighty’ means by definition that He has all power. There is nothing and no one else

with any real power. All power stems from God, and it is not shared by anyone.

No one else can ever fit that word! There is only One who is Almighty:

I am God, there is no other; I am God, there is none like me.

[Isaiah 46:9]

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

The recognition of the Trinity as an innovation started very early in Christian history.

Back in the seventh century, the Eastern theologian John of Damascus, in defending his

icons, stated that icons were as unscriptural as the Trinity: “You will not find in scripture

the Trinity or the homoousion [of the same essence as God] or the two natures of Christ

either.”

Yet, having acknowledged that icons, the Trinity and the incarnation are innovations,

John of Damascus continued to defend them because they were “venerable traditions

delivered to us by the fathers.” (See THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE, p. 133.)

The trinitarian doctrine developed gradually over several centuries, through numerous

controversies. There were many influences in its formulation and development: the

Apostles Creed (around A. D. 160), the Arian controversy (about A. D. 318 to 380), the

Nicene Council (A. D. 325), the Council of Constantinople (A. D. 381), the Council of

Chalcedon (A. D. 451), and the Athanasian Creed (about A. D. 460) are the major ones.

The Council of Nicaea in 325 initiated the Trinity formula in its statement that the Son is

“of the same essence [homoousios] as the Father,” even though it said very little about the

Holy Spirit. Over the next half-century, Athanasius defended and refined the Nicene

formula. By the end of the fifth century, the doctrine of the Trinity had taken essentially

the form it has today.

The Nicene Creed was originally written in Greek. Its principal liturgical use is in the

Eucharist in the West and in both Baptism and the Eucharist in the East. The following

text has the additions used only by the Western Church in brackets:

I believe in one God the Father Almighty; maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible

and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the

Father before all worlds [God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not

made, being of one substance [essence] with the Father; by whom all things were made; who,

for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy

Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius

Pilate; he suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose again, with glory, to judge both

the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And [I believe] in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceedeth from the

Father [and the Son]; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;

who spake by the Prophets.

And [I believe] in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for

the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to

come. Amen.

The historical development of the Nicene Creed is more complex than most people

realize. It was long assumed that the creed was initially stated in the council of 325 and

then enlarged in 381 at the Council of Constantinople. Discovery of documents from the

period has changed that assumption. What we now take to be the Nicene Creed may

actually have been based on a pre-existing baptismal creed which was enlarged and first

stated at the Council of Constantinople.

We know from the proceedings of the Robber Council that there was more than one

version of the Nicene Creed in existence at the time of its convening in 449. This council

was called to judge the case of the elderly head of a local monastery whose understanding

of the nature of Christ was in question. This monk cited an earlier text of the creed than

was currently in use, causing quite a bit of excitement and debate in the council (see

Robert L. Wilken, THE MYTH OF CHRISTIAN BEGINNINGS, Doubleday & Co., 1971).

Even before the formalization of the Nicene Creed, the persecution of those with

nonÄtrinitarian views began. For example, the bishop of Antioch was condemned in a

synod held there around 270 for his reported belief that Jesus was a human being in

whom the Word of God dwelt, much as a person’s reason dwells in him. This was just the

forerunner of centuries of similar persecution against those who did not conform exactly

to the accepted doctrine of the time.

So far what we have mentioned concerns the controversy surrounding the various

understandings of the nature of Christ. There was an equally vehement dispute around the

Filioque clause which is: “and the Holy Spirit...who proceedeth from the Father and

from the son.” This addition of the son’s participation in the Holy Spirit’s existence was

gradually introduced starting in the 6th century. It is accepted only in the Western

Church. The Eastern Church still rejects it as a theological error. Thus the controversy

continues.

THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS

We have touched on the historical aspects of the development of this doctrine, but what

of the psychological and theological aspects? John Hick, H. G. Wood Professor of

Theology at Birmingham University, and editor of THE MYTH OF GOD INCARNATE,

attributes the development of the Trinity doctrine to a human tendency to exalt the

religion’s founder beyond his true identity. As mentioned in Chapter Two, he finds a

parallel in the Buddhist trinitarian doctrine which was never preached by Buddha. Hick

sums up the doctrine of the Trinity as follows:

Returning, then to the theme of the exaltation of a human being to divine status, the

understanding of Jesus which eventually became orthodox Christian dogma sees him as God

the Son incarnate, the Second Person of the Trinity living a human life. As such he was, in the

words of the ‘Nicene’ creed, ‘the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of the Father before all

ages, Light of Light, true God of true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the

Father’. But this is...far from anything that the historical Jesus can reasonably be supposed to

have thought or taught....

The expression “God the Son,” an important component of the Trinity, is never found in

the gospels. John Hick points out that “as Christian theology grew through the centuries it

made the very significant transition from ‘Son of God’ to ‘God the Son,’ the Second

Person of the Trinity” (Ibid., p. 175). The Trinity as an innovation is illustrated well by

Michael Goulder, Staff Tutor in Theology at Birmingham University:

...I went to visit a patient in hospital. I had to wait, and was shortly joined by two further

Christian ministers, the one a Congregationalist, the other (in my opinion at the time) of an

even lower breed, completely without the law. There being nothing else to do, we fell

naturally to theological disputation, and in the course of time the sister was somewhat startled

to come in as my Congregationalist friend was saying, ‘Well, one thing is certain; he didn’t

think he was the Second Person of the Trinity’. I found the remark doubly annoying—partly

because I had always supposed that Jesus thought he was the Second Person of the Trinity

(although wisely not mentioning the fact), and now it was said, it somehow had the ring of the

obvious. And partly also I did not relish being enlightened by a minister not of the established

church. (Ibid, p. 48)

When we look at the Nicene Creed we easily see the human tendency to exaggerate and

to exalt the founder of a religion beyond his own wishes. Referring to Jesus as “God of

God” and “very God of very God” clearly reveals excessive emotionalism and

exaggeration. One is reminded of the folk wisdom that: “Anything that exceeds the

limits, turns to the opposite.” When love exceeds the limits it becomes unbearable

jealousy and possessiveness; it turns into hate. Obviously, the writers of the Nicene Creed

aimed at endearing and exalting Jesus in the eyes of their followers. Their zealous

attempts led to serious distortions of Jesus’ message-to a point that would be horrifying to

Jesus himself:

“None of those who cry out ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom

of God but only the one who does the will of my Father in

heaven. When that day comes, many will plead with me, ‘Lord,

Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? Have we not

exorcised demons by its power? Did we not do many miracles in

your name as well?’ Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I

never knew you. Out of my sight, you evildoers!’ ”

[Matthew 7:21-23]

We cannot study the subject of the Trinity without looking at the views of other, more

recent scriptures. The Quran, for example, condemns in the strongest possible terms both

the concept of Jesus’ divinity and the Trinity:

Unbelievers indeed are those who say that the Messiah, Son of

Mary, is God. The Messiah himself said, “O Children of Israel,

you shall worship only God, my Lord, and your Lord.”

Certainly, anyone who sets up an idol to rank with God, God has

forbidden for him Paradise; his sure destiny is the hellfire. Such

evildoers will have no helpers. Unbelievers indeed are those who

say that God is one third of a trinity. Absolutely, there is no other

god besides the One God. Unless they abstain from such

utterances such unbelievers will incur painful retribution. Would

they not repent before God and seek His forgiveness? God is

forgiver, merciful. The Messiah, son of Mary, was no more than

a messenger like the messengers who preceded him, and his

mother was a saint. Both of them used to eat the food. Note how

we clarify the revelations for them, then note how they still

deviate. Proclaim: “Would you idolize, besides God, those who

possess no power to harm you or benefit you?” God is the only

One who is the hearer, the omniscient.

[Quran 5:72-76]

CONTINUING UNITARIAN vs TRINITARIAN DEBATE

It is important to realize that the debate between Unitarians and Trinitarians continues

today, and that a significant segment of modern Christians do not accept the Trinity as a

valid doctrine. One denomination even calls themselves the Unitarians.

A typical modern-day unitarian Christian view of the Trinity was published in recent

years by a group named “Unity” (Unity Village, Missouri 64065). In their book entitled

THE MAGNIFICENT TOOLS OF THE MIND, Eric Butterworth writes:

The term “Holy Spirit” is an important but greatly misunderstood word in Christianity. It is

thought of as one part of the Trinity (God in three persons); thus, it is clothed with a kind of

individuality which comes and goes in our experience. The concept of the Trinity did not

originate with Jesus. It is not even vaguely suggested in his teachings. It was a term that came

into being as a result of an effort by the bishops of the early church to define the indefinable.

It was a teaching symbol that may have had meaning in its time and among the people of that

day. However, it needs to be clearly redefined in terms of contemporary insights and

integrated into the “new model of the universe.”

SUMMARY

The doctrine of the Trinity does not originate in the gospels, or in the teachings of Jesus.

It demonstrates the human tendency to exalt the object of our love and admiration.

The Nicene creed is the most commonly known statement of the doctrine, but many

events shaped its development. The doctrine was formulated over the third and fourth

centuries, amid much discussion and controversy.

It still produces much discussion and controversy