How The Trinity Was Formulated

The series of events and people who brought forth the trinity doctrine as it appears is as follows. We find in the New Testament that the early church preached nothing about a trinity of three eternal persons. The Old Testament was based on the Oneness of the Godhead as clearly revealed in Old Testament scriptures such as Deuteronomy 6:4, Isaiah chapters 40-50, and Exodus 20:1-5. The Apostles believed in the fullness of the Godhead as dwelling in Jesus Christ bodily. Colossians 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. After the Apostolic age, the Post-Apostolic Age (A.D. 90-140) arrived. The writers Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and Hermas were the only writers of the age whose studies are intact today. In their writings, these men said nothing about a Trinity of three eternal persons. Calvin Biesner, the evangelical author, wrote in the book, "God in Three Persons", that the earliest times exhibited no clear statements about any Trinity whatsoever and that the first two centuries promoted monotheism as the main thought. The Post-Apostolic writers simply stressed the One God concept as found in the Old Testiment. Then the Greek Apologists came along, writing studies that gave the name to the Age as the Greek Apologists from A.D. 130-180. In this Age the first clear changeover to the biblical Oneness towards the trinitarian concept occurred. The main reason the change over occurred was due to their idea of what the term “Logos” found in John 1:1, meant. John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Greek philosophers of prechristian days taught the existence of a Logos. These Apologists entered Christianity in the second century and promoted this pagan idea in the church. They claimed that John meant for his readers to understand that Jesus was the same Logos that the prechristian Greeks believed in, although these Greeks knew nothing about the true God nor of Jesus Christ. They believed the Logos was a second divine person subservient to the Father. This is not believed today by by trinitarians, as they feel the Son and the Father are equal, even though the origin of the idea of two persons comes from these Apologists. The first roots of the trinity came in this age. There was a definite modification of the baptismal formula. The first recorded trinitarian water baptism reference.."For, in the name of God, the Father and Lord of the universe, and of the Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then receive the washing with water." Around 140 A.D. by Justin Martyr. They began baptizing in the titles Father, Son and Holy Ghost, rather than invoke the name Jesus as we find it in Acts 2:38, 8:16, and 19:5. They denied the absolute deity of Jesus Christ. The points that these philosophers held to that are in agreement with modern-day trinitarianism are: 1) the Logos being the second divine person 2) the idea that the Logos was begotten before a certain point of time 3) the Logos is the Son of God 4) a baptismal formula that consisted of a three-fold invocation 5) and the idea that the Spirit somehow linked the Father and the Son together. They attempted to deal with the “plurality” issue of God. Trinity doctrine was as yet invented as a solution. The next age occurred between A.D. 170 and 325, and is called the Old Catholic Age. The process had already started with a threesome of persons comprising One God in the previous Age. In the latter half of the fourth century, an orthodox Trinitarian doctrine was finally established. Many writers of this Age commented about the Oneness doctrine, revealing that Oneness doctrine was the dominant doctrine held by believers in the first part of the Old Catholic Age. These writers gave evidence that proves that Jesus’ name baptism was carried on widely despite the growing popularity of a “Trinity” doctrine of God. Trinitarianism first came with the idea that Jesus was a separate person from the Father and a deity who was inferior to the Father. The original founders of the trinity never departed from that belief. Only until the time of the fourth century did trinitarians begin changing this flaw of thinking. At that time they began saying that the three eternal persons were co-eternal, co-equal and co-substantial. It is notable that early trinitarians rejected the idea that Jesus is God. Men continued rejecting the trinity of persons. Irenaeus wrote in the beginning of the Old Catholic Age and stated that God is One, and that Jesus is God. He believed that the Word is the mind and expression of the Father and that the Son is the invisible Fathers

visible revelation (Colossians 1:12-15). He said the name of Jesus reveals the Father and belongs to the Father. (Matthew 28:19, Acts 2:38, Ephesians 3:14-15, Philippians 2:9) Although he did not fully teach a trinity of persons, he was partway there in believing a trinity since he looked at the Logos as originally being in God and that is somehow, later became distinct from the Father. It was in this Age that the first man to coin the word “Trinity” came along named Tertullian (AD 150-225) and the first one to say that God was three persons in one substance around the year of 197 A.D. Never before Tertullian had anyone heard of the word “Trinity”. This man was originally “Binatarian” - having believed in two persons. Tertullian believed that the Holy Ghost was more of a “thing” and not God, himself. But the “Montanists” taught him to believe in the Paraclete as being more personal than what he formerly felt. Thus the Holy Spirit became the third eternal person in his later thinking. In his book Against Hermogenes, Tertullian believed God was originally alone and not yet, therefore, a Father. The Son was created at a certain point, making God into a Father. He wrote, “The Trinity, flowing down from the Father, does not at all disturb the Monarchy (one sovereign God), while at the same time guards the state of the Economy (three persons),” in his book Against Praxeas, a book that Modalism or Oneness. He said that the Father and the Son are like the Sun and its rays. The light rays and the Sun are one, but yet they are two different things. He taught a new concept saying that the Son is merely “a portion of the whole Godhead”. He did not believe the three persons were eternal, as do the Trinitarians do today. After Tertullian, came Origen (A.D. 185254). This man gained much of his thoughts from pagan philosophy of the Greeks. He believed that souls pre-existed conception and that even Satan would eventually be saved. He believed Jesus was born of the Father before all other creatures, and that “the Holy Spirit was associated in honor and dignity with the Father and the Son. But in His case it is not clearly distinguished whether he is to be regarded as born or innate, or also as a Son of God or not,” according to his book, On the Principles. Origen was the first who clearly taught that there were three persons who were eternal. He taught that the Son eternally was being generated from the Father. (1:2:2, 1:2:4) Towards the end of this age, more and more writers began expressing their beliefs about God in trinitarian terms. Yet they still saw the Son and the Spirit as inferior to the Father. Only two men seemed to write in what is agreeable to the modern trinitarian doctrine. These men were Gregory Thaumaturgus and Dionysius of Rome. Most of the fourth century passed before the orthodox trinitarian doctrine was created. Please note that trinitarianism was originated by people who did not believe in the absolute deity of Jesus Christ. Modern day trinitarians do not even agree with what the originators of the Trinity believed! By the end of the fourth century there was a great controversy between those who believed that Jesus was another being separate from God and inferior to God, and those who believed that Jesus was a co-eternal person beside the Father making up one God. Athanasius led the group who believed in three persons while Arius led the other group. In A.D. 325, Athanasius’ view won the day at the Nicean Council. But the idea of a trinity was not completely declared until the Council at Constantinople in A.D. 381. It was there and then they declared God to be three eternal persons. At this latter Council they declared the Holy Spirit was a third eternal person. The Athanasian Creed is the declaration held by Roman Catholics and most Protestants today. It was created in the fifth century. Modern orthodox trinitarianism stands on this creed. In order to accept the doctrine of the trinity one must believe what the Roman Catholic Church teaches doctrine of the tradition and Magesteruim. This doctrine declares that the Apostles did not have all the truths of God and that the “Church” formulated doctrines after the Bible was written which are to be reckoned to be as important as the truths explicitly taught in the Bible. Since Trinity was not taught in the Bible, but formulated in the fourth century, it nevertheless must be believed since the “Church” said it was true. God did not intend us to think we could add to the words of the Bible by formulating doctrines, which were not taught in Scripture. Revelations 22:18-19 specifically forbids all from adding or taking away from the scriptures. Since

this strange doctrine was not even formulated or made up until the fourth century, and must be referred to as the “word of man” rather than the “Word of God.” And since these terms and their doctrines are the word of man, they must not be elevated as Truth. Jesus said, “thy Word is truth". And not “mans word is truth.” (John 17:17) Consider the following as support of the previous history given on the Trinity. Trinity: According to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, God is, at the same time, one indivisible substance or being and also three distinct persons: God the Father, God the son (or Logos, who appeared on earth as Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost). All three persons are divine, all three have existed from the beginning of eternity, and all three are equally to be worshiped; and yet there are not three gods but one. The concept of the Trinity does not appear in any specific form in the Bible. However, many theologians believe that several Biblical passages refer to it indirectly. The most important reference is Matthew 28:19, in which Jesus commands his disciples baptize people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yet, Jesus came in the name of the father, (Which is Jesus, John 5:43.) and of the son was named Jesus, (Matthew 1:21) and the Holy Spirit was sent in Jesus name. (John 14:26) The doctrine of the Trinity was developed after the second century A.D. in response to religious philosophies that either denied that Jesus was divine or claimed that the Son and the Holy Spirit were inferior to the Father. In 325 A. D. the Council of Nicaea condemned the most widespread of these philosophies, Arianism, and formulated the Nicene Creed. This creed accepted the Son as equal to and of the same substance as God the Father, and required the adoration of all three persons. Another doctrine, which influenced the followers of Saint Augustine and the scholastic, was called modalism. Members of the Trinity were regarded as three modes, or forms of activity, in which God manifested himself, rather than three distinct persons. In the sixth century the Roman Catholic Church added to its creed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Eastern Orthodox Church defined the procession as from the Father through the Son. The Roman interpretation, known as the filioque, became a point of dissention that that helped cause the permanent separation of the two churches. The doctrine of the Trinity is not accepted by several Christian groups most notably the Apostolics, Pentecostals, and the Unitarians. The trinity theory is one of the major reasons for the Jewish rejection of Christianity.