Kingdom Ready

In addition, Greek philosophy, particularly stoicism, spoke of a supreme rational principal, which they called logos. It also taught that “hypostases” were realities which derived from higher essentials. The highest principle was called “the One” and from that was derived the second hypostasis, called Mind. From this came the third, or the Soul. Such ideas were incorporated into Christian doctrine as early as the second century Apologists, after the Hebrew understanding of the Messiah was largely lost. They began to describe the Word as a pre-existent person, created by God, but inferior to Him. This shift from the historical coming of the Messiah in the flesh to the incarnation of a pre-existent being, provided the foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity.

Historian Paul Schrodt, in his book The Problem of the Beginning of Dogma in Recent Theology, writes the following:

The world of the second century was marked in its philosophy and religion by a strong syncretism [mixing of alien systems of thought]. The highest expression of this tendency was, of course, Gnosticism. Within its dualism between spirit and matter, cosmological speculations and progressive emanations (Aions) from the highest God linking via these aions to matter, there was found also a place for a revised Gospel of salvation through Christ.

With the Church this hellenization has remained and is to be found first amongst the apologists of the second century…The Church’s monotheism always retained a certain heathen, philosophical pluralistic coloring. This strange coloring of the doctrine of God began with the taking over of the heathen-philosophical notion of Logos, which in the heathen background had a different meaning. In John’s gospel the Logos is tied to the notion of “teacher” and “teaching.” In the philosophy of that time it was, on the contrary, only one Aion of the Most High God. It was in this last meaning that the apologists [Justin Martyr and others] read Philo’s doctrine of the Logos into Scripture.

Thus the Logos, or Word, was changed from God’s preexisting purpose to a preexisting person. Justin Martyr (mid 2nd century) proposed that it was the Son of God, rather than the word of God, which existed before, and appeared as an angel in the Old Testament. Still, the Son was not yet “co-eternal” or “co-equal” with the Father, as later developments described him.

Tertullian was the first Christian writer to use the term “trinity” to describe three “persons” having “one substance,” around the end of the 2nd century. But he still considered the second and third persons to have proceeded from the first to fulfill a specific function. Origen (early-to-mid 3rd century), on the other hand, considered them to have always existed. He coined the term “eternally begotten” or “eternally generated” which is actually a meaningless contradiction in terms, since “begotten” means someone is brought into existence. But “three persons in one substance” means “God” is now a “substance” or an “essence” rather than a person.

Such language, which is essential to the doctrine of the Trinity, was coined to explain the apparent contradiction between Jesus being deity (in whatever sense) and the belief in only one God. Had these Christian writers simply maintained the original Jewish understanding of God and Lord, along with the understanding of Messiah being God’s Son and thus His ultimate representative, there would have been no contradiction. There would therefore have been no need to coin new language which, in addition to being illogical and self-contradictory, is found nowhere in the Bible. Instead they believed that Greek philosophy provided a way to explain the complex nature of God. They then took these foreign concepts and read them back into the Scriptures, in an attempt to prove that the concepts were Biblical.

As time went on, differences in the nature of the Son and of his relationship with the Father grew more contentious. Athanasius taught that Jesus was co-equal with God, while the Arians believed he was inferior to the Father (though they still believed he preexisted his birth). The heated division over these questions necessitated the Council of Nicea in 325. Under the leadership of the Emperor Constantine, it was officially declared that Jesus was God. The Nicene creed states that he was “begotten of the Father before all ages; God from God; Light from Light; True God from True God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made.” In 381, the Council of Constantinople added the designation that the Holy Ghost was “the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who together with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified; and who spoke through the prophets.”

The doctrine was further developed in the middle ages, as witnessed by the Athanasian Creed of the fifth century. It states that “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith; which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic Faith is this: that we worship One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.”

However, complete equality with regards to their origins was still not claimed for all three, but rather it states, “The Father is neither made, created, nor begotten. The Son of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and the Son, neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” After the Reformation, this distinction was dropped and the definition of the Trinity was fully developed into three persons in one God, completely equal in origin as well as substance, power, and glory.

Since the first introduction of these doctrines, there were always individuals or small groups that opposed the “orthodox” teaching. They were generally excommunicated, exiled, and often persecuted and even killed. Yet there have always been small pockets of Biblical Unitarians throughout history. The 16th century Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation brought it more into the open, and during the 1800s many more people came to an understanding of this view of Jesus. Today, many Biblical scholars recognize that the Scriptures present Jesus Christ as the only-begotten Son of God, and not God the Son. However, they are in the minority and often ridiculed or berated. Nevertheless, they present a sound case that doctrine of the Trinity cannot be shown from the Bible, and in fact is refuted by it.

To Be Continued…