Historical Complexities of the Trinity

When pastors describe the nature of God to congregants, when songs poetically describe God’s identity, or when statements of faith are written for virtually every protestant church in America, the trinity is included. The trinity is understood in modern times to represent the concept that God is three equal persons in one being. If you find this definition unsatisfying, you are not alone. After years of reading explanations about the trinity and discussing the biblical basis of this theology with pastors and laymen alike, I am no closer to comprehending why it is a core tenant of Christian faith. After all, should not any doctrine important enough to be in a church’s constitution or Christian university’s statement of faith be explicitly taught in the Bible? It was not until I researched the history of the concept of the trinity that I learned that I had been misled about its validity.

The first few hundred years of Christianity was challenged not only by Roman and heathen persecution but by passionate disagreements between Christ’s own followers. No other issue was as divisive as the nature of God and Christ. There was little agreement on how to interpret the books and letters that would later be called the New Testament when it came to Christ’s nature and how he and the Holy Spirit were affiliated with God the Father. As you may know, the word trinity is not to be found in the Bible. We are sometimes taught that early church fathers used this term to describe God’s nature, but this is misleading. While there are early writings where church fathers teach on the trinity, what we consider early is relative. If we are referring to St. Augustine, then we are referring to his fifth century writings. St. Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, lived during the thirteenth century. Concepts to explain the trinity written approximately 400 or 1200 years after the death of Jesus, although noteworthy of study, should not be used to demonstrate to unlearned believers that the doctrine has existed since the beginning of Christianity.

The word, trinity, was recorded for the first time as the Greek word, triad, by a Christian apologist from Antioch in AD 180 (we’ll return to Antioch later). Even this was not used to convey the exclusive concept that God is three persons in one being. This interpretation (of Matthew 28:19) came later, by Tertullian, who wrote of God’s “three persons, [in] once essence.” Before we dive further into history, take a moment to appreciate the time span in which these ideas formed. At the risk of sounding blasphemous to some, I will compare this to a modern-day hypothetical example. Presume that a writer examined the life of Abraham Lincoln and without discovering any new evidence theorized that he was a homosexual. Does this sound far-fetched? Well, I lied. This is not a hypothetical example but a true story. The question becomes, why were few people persuaded that Lincoln was gay, but hundreds of millions throughout time and cultures are convinced of a trinity. I offer two possible answers although there are certainly other considerations that apply.

First, the concept of the trinity may be true. Although, guidance on the nature of God is lacking from the apostles and from Jesus, himself, the theory of the trinity could be accurate, and this can account for its widespread acceptance. I have heard and read books by self-identified Christians who claim to know the doctrine of the trinity (as they understand it) to be true because of divine revelation. This is possible, even though, they sometimes disagree with each other regarding the details. By contrast, there is no reasonable evidence that Lincoln was homosexual or bisexual. Statements and actions were taken out of context to account for such an unreasonable

conclusion.

Second, whereas authors in America have freedom of speech and can write, print, and publish their views on theology without facing governmental retribution, much of church history condemned theological viewpoints not aligned with church doctrine. Once the Roman Empire turned from paganism to Christianity, whatever the government-church believed, it was expected for its congregants to believe, and those who persisted in teaching other doctrines faced punishment. By comparison, if the United States only allowed its citizens to read books on Lincoln that supported the conclusion that he was gay, then that would likely be the prominent view today. In this hypothetical situation, even if Americans were recently granted the freedom to read and write any viewpoint on Lincoln, the mainstream view would be difficult to overturn by that point. This, I believe is the case with the trinity, and church history supports my conclusion.

The doctrine of the trinity created the most complex heresies for the early Catholic church. After all, when the Bible is silent on something, zealots often feel the need to say what it really means and then insist others believe like themselves. This is precisely how the Pharisees treated the Law and enforced their added interpretations upon all the Jews. This is also how we ended up with doctrines like the inerrancy of Scripture, young-earth creationism, and the Rapture. For the sake of honoring your time, I will briefly highlight the conflicts involving the church’s development of trinity doctrine.

One of the earliest groups of Christians believed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not separate entities but were the same God. The church condemned this view because it meant that the Father suffered on the cross.

One movement leader claimed that the trinity and God-head consisted not of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but of the Father, Wisdom, and Word. Further infuriating the established church with this leader was his allowance of questions during sermons and women to sing in the choir. He was deposed by the church, but his illegal teachings lasted for 150 years and eventually were revived in what we now call Unitarian churches.

An Alexandrian priest, referencing John 17:3, denied that Christ shared in the full divinity of the Father and was created at his birth. He defended that Jesus was not God in nature but was used as the instrument of God’s salvation. Although the church exiled him, his followers multiplied, and fierce debates continued.

The bitter divisions within the church prompted Constantine to initiate the first council at Nicaea in AD 325. There were partisan feuds between the Eastern and Western churches of the Roman Empire. Since the Easterners had the greater domination, doctrines such as grace, atonement, readmission of backsliders, sacraments, and the triune God fell in their favor. Thus, 300 years after Jesus was crucified, the self-proclaimed universal church devised its first creed:

“We believe in one God, the Father Almighty

Maker of all things both visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,

Begotten of the Father, Only-begotten,

That is, of one substance with the Father;

By whom all things both in heaven and earth were made;

Who for us men and our salvation

Came down and was incarnate, became man,

Suffered and rose again the third day;

Ascended into the heavens;

Comes to judge the quick and the dead;

And in the Holy Spirit”

Notice the first two lines are dedicated to the Father, and the final line is a brief mention of the Holy Spirit’s existence. Everything in between identities Jesus and is biblical except for line 5, which reads, “That is, of one substance with the Father.” This was the phraseology used to show what the church was ready to commit to believing and allow ambiguity for what it was not ready to commit to believing. Unfortunately, it was worded this way just as much to unify the believers as it was to explain doctrine. The goal should have been to repeat doctrine and not to rephrase it for ulterior motives.

The result of the creed was to curse any believer who interpreted scripture to mean Christ was created, alterable, or potentially another “substance” from the Father. Heresies continued as we would expect if Christians believed the church was forcing unbiblical views. In efforts to purge dissidents, charges were invented to exile apologetic opponents. One man was condemned as a heretic for teaching that Jesus and the Holy Spirit emerge for creation and redemption but will contract into divine unity with the Father once their work is complete. This statement is close enough to my own view of God’s nature, that I admit, I would have been condemned as a heretic if I lived in the fourth century.

I now recall your attention to Antioch, where a man first used triad to describe God’s nature. Two hundred years later, Antioch fractured into three congregations in a dispute over the trinity. One group insisted that the Father and Son were totally distinct. Another group maintained that the Son was similar to the Father, while the third group believed the Father and Son were of like substance. I’ll get back to this story in a moment. Into which group do you belong?

For many Christians, this is getting into the weeds too much for discussion. The risk of dismissing these arguments is to admit that we don’t know what we mean when we say that God is a trinity. If we don’t know what we mean when talking to others about God, then we should restrict our comments to what Scripture explicitly teaches and not use popular phrases that we have adopted from tradition.

Returning to Antioch, accusations of heresy reduced the church to a “tattered old coat,” according to one writer. The need for compromise forced arguments that led to a solution for all three groups to accept. They agreed that the Father and Son would share a single substance but that all three persons were distinct too. In time, the Roman Emperor approved of amending the Nicene creed and added more doctrines that were worded carefully, like Christ being, “incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary.” Furthermore, the church eventually decided the Holy

Spirit was equal to the Son and Father. This was a significant change since the main argument had been chiefly between the superiority of the Father over the Son versus their equality while relegating the Holy Spirit to the background.

Possibly worst than identifying God’s substance for political unity was that the Catholic Church was also made a formal part of doctrine. By adding, “And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church,” and, “We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins,” the church had created the conditions in which it claimed authority over spiritual matters including salvation. Holiness was no longer a matter for individuals but resided within the Catholic Church.

I will wrap this up, but the charges of heresies did not end at any given time. Debates continued over how Christ can be fully man and God, could Christ as fully man be capable of redeeming humanity, at what point did Jesus begin to have two natures (at birth, at baptism, at the Cross, or at ascension), and was Mary just the mother of Jesus or the mother of God.

Just as Paul wrote, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12, NASB), I think the same should be true of our claims about God’s nature. Furthermore, I would love to see Christian institutions reflect on the explicit teachings of the Bible in their statements of faith and remove what was added based on personal beliefs or tradition.

May 28, 2025