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Trinity, Trinity

Since the beginning of the third century Tertullian, Against Praxeas, chapter II the doctrine of the Trinity has been stated as "the one God exists in three Persons and one substance, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Trinitarianism , belief in the Trinity, is a mark of Oriental and Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and all the mainstream traditions arising from the Protestant Reformation, such as Anglicanism, Methodism, Lutheranism and Presbyterianism. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes the Trinity as "the central dogma of Christian theology". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford University Press, 2005 ISBN 978-0-19-280290-3), article Trinity, doctrine of the This doctrine is in contrast to Nontrinitarian positions which include Binitarianism (one deity/two persons), Unitarianism (one deity/one person), the Oneness belief held by certain Pentecostal groups, Modalism, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' view of the Godhead as three separate beings who are one in purpose rather than essence.

Raymond E. Brown, The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John (XIII-XXI), pp. 1026, 1032 The same Gospel suggests the equality and unity of Father and Son"Making himself equal to the Father" (); "I and the Father are one" (). But it also suggests a hierarchy ("The Father is greater than I") (), a statement appealed to by Marcionism, Valentinianism, Arianism and others who denied the Trinity.

Then in , "the two angels" visited Lot at Sodom. The interplay between Abraham on the one hand, and the LORD/three men/the two angels on the other was an intriguing text for those who believed in a single god in three persons. Justin Martyr, and Calvin similarly, interpreted it such that Abraham was visited by God, who was accompanied by two angels. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/journals/ssr/issues/volume2/number3/ssr02-03-e02.html Justin supposed that the god who visited Abraham was distinguishable from the god who remains in the heavens, but was nevertheless identified as the (monotheistic) god. Justin appropriated the god who visited Abraham to Jesus, the second person of the Trinity.

Augustine of Hippo has been noted at the forefront of these formulations; and he contributed much to the speculative development of the doctrine of the Trinity as it is known today, in the West; the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzus) are more prominent in the East. The imprint of Augustinianism is found, for example, in the western Athanasian Creed, which, although it bears the name and reproduces the views of the fourth century opponent of Arianism, was probably written much later.

Another consequence, according to Rev. Fr. Thomas Hopko, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, is that if God were not a Trinity, he could not have loved prior to creating other beings on whom to bestow his love. Thus God says in , "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." For Trinitarians, emphasis in Genesis 1:26 is on the plurality in the Deity, and in 1:27 on the unity of the divine Essence. A possible interpretation of Genesis 1:26 is that God's relationships in the Trinity are mirrored in man by the ideal relationship between husband and wife, two persons becoming one flesh, as described in Eve's creation later in the next chapter.

This concept refers for its basis to , where Jesus is instructing the disciples concerning the meaning of his departure. His going to the Father, he says, is for their sake; so that he might come to them when the "other comforter" is given to them. At that time, he says, his disciples will dwell in him, as he dwells in the Father, and the Father dwells in him, and the Father will dwell in them. This is so, according to the theory of perichoresis, because the persons of the Trinity "reciprocally contain one another, so that one permanently envelopes and is permanently enveloped by, the other whom he yet envelopes". (Hilary of Poitiers, Concerning the Trinity 3:1).

Rather, the difference is primarily one of belief concerning the personal identity of Christ. It is a difference in conception of the salvation connected with Christ that drives all reactions, either favorable or unfavorable, to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. As it is, the doctrine of the Trinity is directly tied up with Christology.

The three persons of the Trinity always work inseparably, for their work is always the work of the one God. Because of this unity of will, the Trinity cannot involve the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father. Eternal subordination can only exist if the Son's will is at least conceivably different from the Father's. But Nicene orthodoxy says it is not. The Son's will cannot be different from the Father's because it is the Father's. They have but one will as they have but one being. Otherwise they would not be one God. If there were relations of command and obedience between the Father and the Son, there would be no Trinity at all but rather three gods. Phillip Cary, Priscilla Papers Vol. 20, No. 4, Autumn 2006 In explaining why the Bible speaks of the Son as being subordinate to the Father, the great theologian Athanasius argued that scripture gives a "double account" of the son of God one of his temporal and voluntary subordination in the incarnation, and the other of his eternal divine status. Athanasius, 3.29 (p. 409) For Athanasius, the Son is eternally one in being with the Father, temporally and voluntarily subordinate in his incarnate ministry. Such human traits, he argued, were not to be read back into the eternal Trinity.

As Basil wrote: "We perceive the operation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be one and the same, in no respect showing differences or variation; from this identity of operation we necessarily infer the unity of nature." Basil "Letters", NPNF, Vol 8, 189.7 (p. 32) Augustine also rejected the idea of an economic hierarchy within the Trinity. He claimed that the three persons of the Trinity "share the inseparable equality one substance present in divine unity". Hill, De Trinitate, 2.15 Because the three persons are one in their inner life, this means that for Augustine their works in the world are one. For this reason, it is an impossibility for Augustine to speak of the Father commanding and the Son obeying as if there could be a conflict of wills within the eternal Trinity.

For him the Son's obedience is limited to the incarnation and is indicative of his true humanity assumed for human salvation. P. van Buren, Christ in Our Place (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), p. 38 Much of this work is summed up in the Athanasian Creed. This creed stresses the unity of the Trinity and the equality of the persons. It ascribes equal divinity, majesty, and authority to all three persons. All three are said to be "almighty" and "Lord" (no subordination in authority; "none is before or after another" (no hierarchical ordering); and "none is greater, or less than another" (no subordination in being or nature). Thus, since the divine persons of the Trinity act with one will, there is no possibility of hierarchy-inequality in the Trinity.

Explanations of the Trinity are not the same thing as the doctrine itself; nevertheless the Augustinian West is inclined to think in philosophical terms concerning the rationality of God's being, and is prone on this basis to be more open than the East to seek philosophical formulations which make the doctrine more intelligible.

If finite, then God is finite. If infinite, then there are multiple infinities. Each case becomes a denial of monotheism. The belief in compositional parts has been regarded as a heresy since the establishment of the Nicene Creed, and reaffirmed in Protestant Creeds such as the Westminster Confession of Faith and 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith which state "God has no parts." Westminster Confession of Faith, 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith: "God and the holy Trinity" Travis Dougherty, however, in a 2009 work, argues that "compositionism", a position which he defends, was the position most commonly adopted by Christians prior to the Arian controversy, and has consistently held sway among common believers. Dougherty argues that the formulation in which each person is equal to the whole essence excludes the possibility of difference among the three persons, "and there cannot be a real distinction among the three without a real difference." Dougherty, T. (2009) The Holy Trinity: A New Approach. p. 145.

Even rarer is the depiction of the Trinity as a single anthropoid figure with three faces, because the Trinity is defined as three persons in one Godhead, not one Person with three attributes (this would imply Modalism, which is defined as heresy in traditional Christian orthodoxy).

While not specifically rejecting Trinitarianism or presenting an alternative doctrine of the Godhead and God's relationship with humanity, they are neither dogmatic about the Trinity nor hold it as a test of true Christian faith. Some, like the Society of Friends (Quakers) and Christian Unitarians, may reject all doctrinal or creedal tests of true faith, though not necessarily rejecting Trinitarian language. Others, like some members of the restorationist Churches of Christ, in keeping with a distinctive understanding of "Scripture alone", say that since the doctrine of the Trinity is not clearly articulated in the Bible, it cannot be required for salvation. Still others may look to church tradition and say that there has always been a Christian tradition that faithfully followed Jesus without such a doctrine.

The primary author of this Monophysite group was John Philoponus. He taught that there are three partial substances and one comon substance in the trinity. Chapman, John. "Tritheists." 2003. The Catholic Encyclopedia. December 6, 2005. p2.

However, whereas Trinitarians believe that "God the Son" (a being whose existence is denied in Oneness theology), the eternal second person of the Trinity, became man, Oneness adherents hold that the one and only true Godwho manifests himself in any way he chooses, including as Father, Son and Holy Spiritbecame man. Oneness believers view "Father", "Son" and "Holy Spirit" as titles , reflecting different manifestations of the one true God in the universe. Oneness Pentecostals are regarded by orthodox Christians as subscribing to the heresy of Modalism, teaching that God displayed himself in the Old Testament as Father, in the Gospels as the Son, and after the Ascension as the Holy Spirit, which is not the orthodox doctrine of three distinct and eternal Persons in one divine essence. Rather, Oneness teaches that there is only one being, revealing himself in different ways.

Source: Wikipedia > Trinity