Development of the doctrine of trinity

One of the main fundamental key truths in Christianity is the belief in the doctrine of the Trinity.
The Trinity of God is a doctrine that is fundamental to the Christian faith; belief or disbelief in
the Trinity marks or orthodoxy or from unorthodoxy. Human reason, however, cannot fathom the
Trinity, nor can logic explain it, and, although the word itself is not found in the Scriptures, the
doctrine is plainly taught in the Scriptures. The early church was forced to study the subject and
affirm its truth because of the heretical teachings that arose opposing the Trinity. The word
"Trinity" is not found in Scripture, but is used to express the doctrine of the unity of God as
subsisting in three distinct Persons. This word is derived from the Greek trias (a set of three) or
from the Latin trinitas (an abstract Latin noun that most literally means three-ness). It was first
used by Tertullian (A.D. 220), to refer to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Trinity is used in general,
for any set of three things (Astika, 2012).

A proper definition of the Trinity states: “The Trinity is composed of three united persons
without separate existence – so completely united as to form one God. The divine nature subsists
in three distinctions – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Enns, 1989). Simply put, the doctrine of the
Trinity states that there is: One God in three Persons. It is not three Gods in one God - it is one
God in three Persons. The Bible specifically states over and over again that there is only one
God. There are not three Gods in one God. God the Father is the first Person of the Trinity, His
Son Jesus Christ is the second Person of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit is the third Person of the
Trinity. Athanasius wrote in the Athanasian Creed: "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the
Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God." (Knight, 2009)

History of the Doctrine of Trinity

The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was enunciated in a series of debates and councils which
were in large part prompted by the controversies sparked by such movements as Monarchianism
and Arianism (Erickson, 1996). The doctrine of the trinity, as defined by the Nicene Creed (AD
325) confirmed by the Council of Constantinople (AD 381) and amplified somewhat by the
Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) is that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are of the same
substance (Greek homoiousis).
Though the term “Trinity” does not occur in the Bible, it had very early in the church. Perhaps
the best question we can ask is whether this doctrine, as defined by the Orthodox Christian
Church in the third through fifth centuries is indeed true and biblical. The word trias (of which
the Latin trinitas is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about A.D. 180. He
speaks of "the Trinity of God [the Father], His Word and His Wisdom (To Autolycus II.15). The
term may, of course, have been in use before his time. Afterwards it appears in its Latin form of
trinitas in Tertullian (On Pudicity 21). In the next century the word is in general use. It is found
in many passages of Origen ("In Ps. xvii", 15) (Knight, 2009).

The writers of this school contend that the doctrine of the Trinity, as professed by the Church, is
not contained in the New Testament, but that it was first formulated in the second century and
received final approbation in the fourth, as the result of the Arian and Macedonian controversies.
The development of the doctrine of the Trinity happened in stages, over a period of at least a
couple of hundred years. From the time of Justin Martyr in the second century, post-New
Testament writers wrestled with the central Christian mystery of the tripersonal God. How could
they grasp, even marginally, the differentiated unity of God or the divine unity in distinction?
Recent years have brought numerous studies of traditional teaching and thinking about the
Trinity (Lacugna, 1991).

The council of Nicaea (325 A. D.) was an epoch in Christian history. The heresy of Sabellius and
Paul of Samosata, that refused to recognize the Father as in any personal sense distinct from the
Son and the Holy Spirit, had been previously condemned. But Arius, who began with the
Sabellian idea that the Trinity is only one of manifestation, change his position and declared that
there were three persons in God, but that these three were unequal in glory (Unger, 1988). In
short, the Son and the Holy Spirit owed their existence to the divine will and, accordingly, were
creatures of God.

The Council of Nicaea, in opposition to Arianism and various other theories, adopted the formal
statement of the consubstantiality of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, while maintaining
the distinction of personality, was seen as the hallmark of orthodoxy. It declared that the Son is
"of the same substance" as the Father. The Trinity was affirmed as an article of faith by the
Nicene (325/381) and Athanasian creeds (circa 500), which attempted to standardize belief in the
face of disagreements on the subject (Brooks, 2009)
The Anathasian Creed, as quoted by Thiessen, expresses the Trinitarian belief. It was written:
“We worship one God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in unity; we distinguish among the persons,
but we do not divide the substance … The entire three persons are coeternal and coequal with
one another, so that … we worship complete unity in Trinity and Trinity in unity.” (Theissen,
1987)

In the fourth century, the Capadocians develop their language of the three co-equal and co-
eternal hypostaseis or persons sharing the one divine ousia or essence. After Athanasius and the
Capadocians develop their Trinitarian, St Augustinus of Hippo (AD 354 – 430), wrote his De
Trinitate slowly and arguably in a somewhat less polemical way. He took seventeen years to
complete the work, which – one must add – is neither his last nor his only work on the Trinity
(Davis, 1999).

In the Trinitate, which may be his greatest work, Augustine turned his prodigious intellect to the
problem of the nature of the Trinity. Augustine emphasizes the unity of God more that the
threeness. The three members of the Trinity are separate individuals in the way in which three
members of the human race are separate individuals. Each member of the Trinity is in his
essence identical with the others or with the divine substance itself. They are distinguished in
term of their relations within the Godhead. (Erickson, 1996)

THE EVIDENCE OF THE TRINITY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

The doctrine of Trinity is more clearly set forth in the New Testament than in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament there is no systematic, point-by-point exposition of the doctrine of the
Trinity. Something remarkable happened between the completion of the Old Testament and the
first writings of the New. What was vaguely intimated in the Old Testament became a clear,
settled doctrine in the New, needing no elaborate definition or defense (Frame, 2002). The New
Testament clearly says the Trinity that Jesus is God (John 1:1, 14); it says the Father is God (Phil.
1:2); and it says the Holy Spirit is God (Acts 5:3-4). Since the Son speaks to the Father, they are
separate persons (John 17). Since the Holy Spirit speaks also (Acts 13:2), He too is a separate
person. There can be no question that the New Testament proclaims there is only One God and
that He exists in three distinct persons (Abrams, 2007).

The Trinity in the Gospels

The evidence of the Trinity from the Gospels was scattered from the beginning of the Gospel
until the end. In the birth narratives, Jesus is conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke
1:35) and thus “the Son of God” (Luke 1:35) comes to be “Immanuel – God with us” (Matt.
1:30). It is undeniable that in Mary’s conception the Trinity is involved: the Holy Spirit came
upon Mary, the power of God overshadowed her, and the resultant offspring was called the Son
of God (Luke 1:35) (Enns, 1989).

The supernatural appearance at the baptism of Christ is often cited as an explicit revelation of
Trinitarian doctrine, given at the very commencement of the Ministry. At that moment, the three
persons are present: Jesus, the Spirit descending as a dove (Matt. 3:16; Luke 3:22), and the
Father speaking from heaven, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt.
3:17; cf. 17:5; Luke 3:22). In the baptismal scene which finds record by all the evangelists at the
opening of Jesus' ministry (Mt. iii. 16, 17; Mk. i. 10, 11; Lk. iii. 21, 22; Jn. i. 32-34), the three
Persons are thrown up to sight in a dramatic picture in which the Deity of each is strongly
emphasized.

The testimony of John the apostle in the gospel of John is yet more explicit than that of the
Synoptists. He expressly asserts that the very purpose of his Gospel is to establish the Divinity of
Jesus Christ (John 20:31). In the prologue he identifies Him with the Word, the only begotten of
the Father, who from all eternity exists with God, who is God (John 1:1-18). The richest
Trinitarian teaching in the Gospel is in the Johannine discourses preceding Jesus’ atoning death.
Here Jesus expresses eternal intimacy with the Father (compare with John 17:5, 10-11, 22, 26),
and promises to send upon the church the Holy Spirit from the Father, and to come to the
“Father’s house” in the Spirit (John 14:2-6; 16 - 18, 26; 15:26; 16:13-15; 20:21-22). Millard J.
Erickson mentioned as he quoted George Henry observation as follows:

It is in the fourth Gospel that the strongest evidence of a coequal Trinity is to be found. The
threefold formula appears again and again: 1:33-34; 14:16, 26; 16:13-15; 20:21-22 (cf. 1 John
4:2, 13-14). The inter-dynamics among the three persons come through repeatedly. The Son is
sent by the Father (14:24) and comes forth from him (16:28). The Spirit is given by the Father
(14:16), sent from the Father (14:26); and proceeds from the Father (15:26). Yet the Son is
closely involved in the coming of the Spirit: he prays for his coming (14:16); the Father sends
the Spirit in the Son’s name (14:26); the Son will send the Spirit from the Father (15:26); the Son
must go away so that he can send the Spirit (16:7). The Spirit’s ministry is understood as a
continuation and elaboration of that of the Son. He will bring to remembrance what the Son has
said (14:26); he will bear witness to the Son (15:26); he will declare what he hears from the Son,
thus glorying the Son (16:13-14) (Erickson, 1996).

The Trinity in Pauline Letters

The evidence of the Trinity in Pauline letters can be seen in numerous passages of his writings.
In numerous passages scattered through Paul's Epistles, from the earliest of them to the latest, all
three Persons, God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, are brought together, in
the most incidental manner, as co-sources of all the saving blessings which come to believers in
Christ. For instance, such as, in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, Paul presents the abounding spiritual gifts
with which the church was blessed in a threefold aspect, and connects these aspects with the
three Divine Persons. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different
kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God, who
works all of them in all men.

It may be thought that there is a measure of what might almost be called artificiality in assigning
the endowments of the church, as they are graces to the Spirit, as they are services to Christ, and
as they are energizings to God. But thus, there is only the more strikingly revealed the underlying
Trinitarian conception as dominating the structure of the clauses: Paul clearly so writes, not
because "gifts," "workings," "operations" stand out in his thought as greatly diverse things, but
because God, the Lord, and the Spirit lie in the back of his mind constantly suggesting a
threefold causality behind every manifestation of grace. The Trinity is alluded to rather than
asserted; but it is so alluded to as to show that it constitutes the determining basis of all Paul's
thought of the God of redemption.2

Another instruction regarding of the Trinity was found in the apostolic benediction: “May the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with
you all.”30 Here the three highest redemptive blessings are brought together, and attached
distributively to the three Persons of the Triune God. The construction shows that the Apostle is
speaking of three distinct Persons. Moreover, since the names God and Holy Spirit are alike
Divine names, it follows that Jesus Christ is also regarded as a Divine Person. It is not only sums
up the apostolic teaching, but interprets the deeper meaning of the Trinity in Christian
experience; the saving grace of the Son giving access to the love of the Father and to the
communion of the Spirit.

The Trinity in the Letter of Peter

The phenomena of Paul's Epistles are repeated in the other writings of the New Testament. In
these other writings also, it is everywhere assumed that the redemptive activities of God rest on a
threefold source in God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit; and these three
Persons repeatedly come forward together in the expressions of Christian hope or the aspirations
of Christian devotion. In the first letter of Peter was written: “To God’s elect, … who have been
chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the
Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood.”34 Peter traces salvation to the
same tribunal source: ‘destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Holy Spirit, for
obedience to Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet. 1:2).35 Peter write out of a fixed Trinitarian consciousness and
bear his testimony to the universal understanding current in apostolical circles. Everywhere and
by all it was fully understood that the one God whom Christians worshipped and from whom
alone they expected redemption and all that redemption brought with it, included within His
undiminished unity the three: God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, whose
activities relatively to one another are conceived as distinctly personal.

CONCLUSION
The doctrine of the Trinity has been a divisive issue throughout the entire history of the Christian
church. While the core aspects of the Trinity are clearly presented in God’s Word, some of the
side issues are not as explicitly clear. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is
God—but there is only one God. That is the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. Beyond that, the
issues are, to a certain extent, debatable and non-essential. Rather than attempting to fully define
the Trinity with our finite human minds, we would be better served by focusing on the fact of
God's greatness and his infinitely higher nature.