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After a little search here is a snippet of the theologians answer to the Trinity question. Forgive the length. This is an argument that has been in contention for nearly 2000 years.
"We can conclude without much difficulty that the concept of the Trinity did not come from Judaism. Nor did Jesus speak of a trinity. The message of Jesus was of the coming kingdom; it was a message of love and forgiveness. As for his relationship with the Father, Jesus said, ‘... I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me’,{# Joh 5:30} and in another place ‘my doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me’;{# Joh 7:16} and his words ‘my Father is greater than I’ {#Joh 14:28} leave no doubt as to their relationship.
The word ‘trinity’ was not coined until Tertullian, more than 100 years after Christ’s death, and the key words (meaning substance) from the Nicene debate, homousis and ousis, are not biblical, but from Stoic thought. Nowhere in the Bible is the Trinity mentioned. According to Pelikan, ‘One of the most widely accepted conclusions of the 19th century history of dogma was the thesis that the dogma of the Trinity was not an explicit doctrine of the New Testament, still less of the Old Testament, but had evolved from New Testament times to the 4th century. (Historical Theology 134)
If the Trinity did not originate with the Bible, where did it come from? To find the origins of the Trinity in Christianity, we need to take a look at the circumstances in which early Christians found themselves.
Even the Church of the Apostles’ day was far from unified. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that ‘the mystery of iniquity doth already work’.{# 2Th 2:7} Throughout his book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, the German New Testament scholar, lexicographer, and early Church historian, Walter Bauer, effectively proves that many early Christians were influenced by gnosticism. He believes it possible that certain ‘[heresies recorded by early Christian Fathers] originally had not been such at all, but, at least here and there...were simply ‘Christianity”(xxii). Bauer goes even further, as he proves that early Christians in Edessa appear to have been followers of the Marcion’s beliefs (considered heretical today), with ‘orthodox’ views being so strongly in the minority that ‘Christian’ referred to one with Marcion’s beliefs, and ‘Palutian’ to one with ‘orthodox’ (by today’s standards) beliefs (21-38). In his work The Greek Fathers, James Marshall Campbell, a Greek professor, bears out the great fear of gnosticism prevalent in the early church.
With Gnosticism being so predominant in this early period, it behooves one to learn what they believed, for many early church writings were defenses against gnosticism. Gnosticism borrowed much of its philosophy and religion from Mithraism, oriental mysticism, astrology, magic, and Plato. It considered matter to be evil and in opposition to Deity, relied heavily on visions, and sought salvation through knowledge. The late Professor Arthur Cushman McGiffert interprets some of the early Christian fathers as believing the Gnosticism to be ‘identical to [sic] all intents and purposes with Greek polytheism’ (50). Gnosticism had a mixed influence on the early Christian writers: like the pendulum on a clock, some were influenced by Gnostic thought, while others swung to the opposite extreme.
Knowledge was also the desire of the Greek philosophers. We owe a lot to these sages of old. J. N. D. Kelly, lecturer and principal at St. Edward Hall, Oxford University, states that ‘[the concepts of philosophy] provided thinkers... with an intellectual framework for expressing their ideas’ (9) to the extent that it became the ‘deeper religion of most intelligent people’ (9). The eminent theologian Adolf Harnack considered Greek philosophy and culture to be factors in the formation of the ‘ecclesiastical mode of thought’ (1: 127). According to McGiffert, the concepts of philosophy prevalent during the time of the early church were Stoicism, which was ‘ethical in its interests and monistic in its ontology’ and Platonism, which was ‘dualistic and predominately religious’ (46).
That these philosophies affected Christianity is a historical fact. What did these philosophers teach about God? In Plato’s Timeus, ‘The Supreme Reality appears in the trinitarian form of the Good, the Intelligence, and the World-Soul’ (qtd. in Laing 129). Laing attributes elaborate trinitarian theories to the Neoplatonists, and considers Neoplatonic ideas as ‘one of the operative factors in the development of Christian theology’ (129).
Is this positive proof that the Christian Trinity descended from Greek philosophy? No. However, in a comparison between the church of the third century and that of 150-200 years before, the noted German theologian, Adolf Harnack, finds ‘few Jewish, but many Greco-Roman features, and... the philosophic spirit of the Greeks’ (1: 45). In addition, Durant ties in philosophy with Christianity when he states that the second century Alexandrian Church, from which both Clement and Origen came, ‘wedded Christianity to Greek philosophy’ (Caesar 613); and finally, Durant writes of the famed pagan philosopher, Plotinus, that ‘Christianity accepted nearly every line of him...’ (Caesar 611).
World conditions were hardly conducive to the foundation of a new and different religion. Pagan gods were still the gods of the state, and the Roman government was very superstitious. All calamities were considered the displeasure of the gods. When the dissolute Roman government began to crumble, it was not seen as a result of corruption within, but as the anger of the gods; and thus there were strong persecutions against Christians to placate these gods.
In such a time was Christianity born. On one side were persecutions; on the other the seduction of philosophy. To remain faithful to the belief of Jesus Christ meant hardship and ridicule. It was only for the simple poor and the rich in faith. It was a hard time to convert to Christianity from the relatively safer paganism. In the desire to grow, the Church compromised truth, which resulted in confusion as pagans became Christians and intermingled beliefs and traditions. In his Emergence of Catholic Tradition, Pelikan discusses the conflict in the Church after AD 70 and the decline of Judaic influence within Christianity. As more and more pagans came into Christianity, they found the Judaic influence offensive. Some even went so far as to reject the Old Testament (13-14).
With this background, the growth and evolution of the Trinity can be clearly seen. As previously stated, the Bible does not mention the Trinity. Harnack affirms that the early church view of Jesus was as Messiah, and after his resurrection he was ‘raised to the right hand of God’ but not considered as God (1: 78). Bernard Lonergan, a Roman Catholic priest and Bible scholar, concurs that the educated Christians of the early centuries believed in a single, supreme God (119). As for the holy Spirit, McGiffert tells us that early Christians considered the holy Spirit ‘not as an individual being or person but simply as the divine power working in the world and particularly in the church’ (111). Durant summarizes early Christianity thus: ‘In Christ and Peter, Christianity was Jewish; in Paul it became half Greek; in Catholicism it became half Roman’ (Caesar 579).
As the apostles died, various writers undertook the task of defending Christianity against the persecutions of the pagans. The writers of these ‘Apologies’ are known to us now as the ‘Apologists’. Pelikan states that ‘it was at least partly in response to pagan criticism of the stories in the Bible that the Christian apologists... took over and adapted the methods and even vocabulary of pagan allegorism’ (Emergence 30). Campbell agrees when he states that ‘the Apologists borrowed heavily, and at times inappropriately, from the pagan resources at hand’ (23). They began the ‘process of accommodation’ between Christianity and common philosophy, and used reason to ‘justify Christianity to the pagan world’ (22-23).
The most famous of these Apologists was Justin Martyr (c.107-166). He was born a pagan, became a pagan philosopher, then a Christian. He believed that Christianity and Greek philosophy were related. As for the Trinity, McGiffert asserts, ‘Justin insisted that Christ came from God; he did not identify him with God’ (107). Justin’s God was ‘a transcendent being, who could not possibly come into contact with the world of men and things’ (107).
Not only was the Church divided by Gnosticism, enticed by philosophy, and set upon by paganism, but there was a geographic division as well. The East (centered in Alexandria) and the West (centered in Rome) grew along two different lines. Kelly shows how the East was intellectually adventurous and speculative (4), a reflection of the surrounding Greek culture. The theological development of the East is best represented in Clement and Origen.
Clement of Alexandria (c.150-220) was from the ‘Catechetical School’ of Alexandria. His views were influenced by Gnosticism (Bauer 56-57), and McGiffert affirms, ‘Clement insists that philosophy came from God and was given to the Greeks as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ as the law was a schoolmaster for the Hebrews’ (183). McGiffert further states that Clement considered ‘God the Father revealed in the Old Testament’ separate and distinct from the ‘Son of God incarnate in Christ,’ with whom he identified the Logos (206). Campbell summarizes that ‘[with Clement the] philosophic spirit enters frankly into the service of Christian doctrine, and with it begins... the theological science of the future’ (36). However, it was his student, Origen, who ‘achieved the union of Greek philosophy and Christianity’ (39).
Origen (c.185-253) is considered by Campbell to be the ‘founder of theology’ (41), the greatest scholar of the early church and the greatest theologian of the East (38). Durant adds that ‘with [Origen] Christianity ceased to be only a comforting faith; it became a full-fledged philosophy, buttressed with scripture but proudly resting on reason’ (Caesar 615). Origen was a brilliant man. At 18 he succeeded Clement as president of the Alexandrian school. Over 800 titles were attributed to him by Jerome. He traveled extensively and started a new school in Cesarea.
In Origen we find an important link in the changing view of God. According to Pelikan’s Historical Theology, Origen was the ‘teacher of such orthodox stalwarts as the Cappadocian Fathers’ (22) but also the ‘teacher of Arius’ (22) and the ‘originator of many heresies’ (22). Centuries after his death, he was condemned by councils at least five times; however, both Athanasius and Eusebius had great respect for him.
As he tried to reckon the ‘incomprehensible God’ with both Stoic and Platonic philosophy, Origen presented views that could support both sides of the Trinity argument. He believed the Father and Son were separate ‘in respect of hypostasis’ (substance), but ‘one by harmony and concord and identity of will’ (qtd. in Lonergan 56). He claimed the Son was the image of God.
In the way in which, according to the bible story, we say that Seth is the image of his father, Adam. For thus it is written: ‘And Adam begot Seth according to his own image and likeness.’ Image, in this sense, implies that the Father and the Son have the same nature and substance. (qtd. in Lonergan 58)
He also maintained that there was a difference between the God and God when he said ‘_ß _&hibar; 2, __is indeed the God [God himself].... Whatever else, other than him who is called _ß _&hibar; 2, __, is also God, is deified by participation, by sharing in his divinity, and is more properly to be called not the God but simply God’ (qtd. in Lonergan 61).
As Greek influence and Gnosticism became introduced into the Eastern church, it became more mystical and philosophical. The simple doctrines that Jesus taught to the uneducated gave way to the complex and sophisticated arguments of Origen."
"We can conclude without much difficulty that the concept of the Trinity did not come from Judaism. Nor did Jesus speak of a trinity. The message of Jesus was of the coming kingdom; it was a message of love and forgiveness. As for his relationship with the Father, Jesus said, ‘... I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me’,{# Joh 5:30} and in another place ‘my doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me’;{# Joh 7:16} and his words ‘my Father is greater than I’ {#Joh 14:28} leave no doubt as to their relationship.
The word ‘trinity’ was not coined until Tertullian, more than 100 years after Christ’s death, and the key words (meaning substance) from the Nicene debate, homousis and ousis, are not biblical, but from Stoic thought. Nowhere in the Bible is the Trinity mentioned. According to Pelikan, ‘One of the most widely accepted conclusions of the 19th century history of dogma was the thesis that the dogma of the Trinity was not an explicit doctrine of the New Testament, still less of the Old Testament, but had evolved from New Testament times to the 4th century. (Historical Theology 134)
If the Trinity did not originate with the Bible, where did it come from? To find the origins of the Trinity in Christianity, we need to take a look at the circumstances in which early Christians found themselves.
Even the Church of the Apostles’ day was far from unified. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that ‘the mystery of iniquity doth already work’.{# 2Th 2:7} Throughout his book Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, the German New Testament scholar, lexicographer, and early Church historian, Walter Bauer, effectively proves that many early Christians were influenced by gnosticism. He believes it possible that certain ‘[heresies recorded by early Christian Fathers] originally had not been such at all, but, at least here and there...were simply ‘Christianity”(xxii). Bauer goes even further, as he proves that early Christians in Edessa appear to have been followers of the Marcion’s beliefs (considered heretical today), with ‘orthodox’ views being so strongly in the minority that ‘Christian’ referred to one with Marcion’s beliefs, and ‘Palutian’ to one with ‘orthodox’ (by today’s standards) beliefs (21-38). In his work The Greek Fathers, James Marshall Campbell, a Greek professor, bears out the great fear of gnosticism prevalent in the early church.
With Gnosticism being so predominant in this early period, it behooves one to learn what they believed, for many early church writings were defenses against gnosticism. Gnosticism borrowed much of its philosophy and religion from Mithraism, oriental mysticism, astrology, magic, and Plato. It considered matter to be evil and in opposition to Deity, relied heavily on visions, and sought salvation through knowledge. The late Professor Arthur Cushman McGiffert interprets some of the early Christian fathers as believing the Gnosticism to be ‘identical to [sic] all intents and purposes with Greek polytheism’ (50). Gnosticism had a mixed influence on the early Christian writers: like the pendulum on a clock, some were influenced by Gnostic thought, while others swung to the opposite extreme.
Knowledge was also the desire of the Greek philosophers. We owe a lot to these sages of old. J. N. D. Kelly, lecturer and principal at St. Edward Hall, Oxford University, states that ‘[the concepts of philosophy] provided thinkers... with an intellectual framework for expressing their ideas’ (9) to the extent that it became the ‘deeper religion of most intelligent people’ (9). The eminent theologian Adolf Harnack considered Greek philosophy and culture to be factors in the formation of the ‘ecclesiastical mode of thought’ (1: 127). According to McGiffert, the concepts of philosophy prevalent during the time of the early church were Stoicism, which was ‘ethical in its interests and monistic in its ontology’ and Platonism, which was ‘dualistic and predominately religious’ (46).
That these philosophies affected Christianity is a historical fact. What did these philosophers teach about God? In Plato’s Timeus, ‘The Supreme Reality appears in the trinitarian form of the Good, the Intelligence, and the World-Soul’ (qtd. in Laing 129). Laing attributes elaborate trinitarian theories to the Neoplatonists, and considers Neoplatonic ideas as ‘one of the operative factors in the development of Christian theology’ (129).
Is this positive proof that the Christian Trinity descended from Greek philosophy? No. However, in a comparison between the church of the third century and that of 150-200 years before, the noted German theologian, Adolf Harnack, finds ‘few Jewish, but many Greco-Roman features, and... the philosophic spirit of the Greeks’ (1: 45). In addition, Durant ties in philosophy with Christianity when he states that the second century Alexandrian Church, from which both Clement and Origen came, ‘wedded Christianity to Greek philosophy’ (Caesar 613); and finally, Durant writes of the famed pagan philosopher, Plotinus, that ‘Christianity accepted nearly every line of him...’ (Caesar 611).
World conditions were hardly conducive to the foundation of a new and different religion. Pagan gods were still the gods of the state, and the Roman government was very superstitious. All calamities were considered the displeasure of the gods. When the dissolute Roman government began to crumble, it was not seen as a result of corruption within, but as the anger of the gods; and thus there were strong persecutions against Christians to placate these gods.
In such a time was Christianity born. On one side were persecutions; on the other the seduction of philosophy. To remain faithful to the belief of Jesus Christ meant hardship and ridicule. It was only for the simple poor and the rich in faith. It was a hard time to convert to Christianity from the relatively safer paganism. In the desire to grow, the Church compromised truth, which resulted in confusion as pagans became Christians and intermingled beliefs and traditions. In his Emergence of Catholic Tradition, Pelikan discusses the conflict in the Church after AD 70 and the decline of Judaic influence within Christianity. As more and more pagans came into Christianity, they found the Judaic influence offensive. Some even went so far as to reject the Old Testament (13-14).
With this background, the growth and evolution of the Trinity can be clearly seen. As previously stated, the Bible does not mention the Trinity. Harnack affirms that the early church view of Jesus was as Messiah, and after his resurrection he was ‘raised to the right hand of God’ but not considered as God (1: 78). Bernard Lonergan, a Roman Catholic priest and Bible scholar, concurs that the educated Christians of the early centuries believed in a single, supreme God (119). As for the holy Spirit, McGiffert tells us that early Christians considered the holy Spirit ‘not as an individual being or person but simply as the divine power working in the world and particularly in the church’ (111). Durant summarizes early Christianity thus: ‘In Christ and Peter, Christianity was Jewish; in Paul it became half Greek; in Catholicism it became half Roman’ (Caesar 579).
As the apostles died, various writers undertook the task of defending Christianity against the persecutions of the pagans. The writers of these ‘Apologies’ are known to us now as the ‘Apologists’. Pelikan states that ‘it was at least partly in response to pagan criticism of the stories in the Bible that the Christian apologists... took over and adapted the methods and even vocabulary of pagan allegorism’ (Emergence 30). Campbell agrees when he states that ‘the Apologists borrowed heavily, and at times inappropriately, from the pagan resources at hand’ (23). They began the ‘process of accommodation’ between Christianity and common philosophy, and used reason to ‘justify Christianity to the pagan world’ (22-23).
The most famous of these Apologists was Justin Martyr (c.107-166). He was born a pagan, became a pagan philosopher, then a Christian. He believed that Christianity and Greek philosophy were related. As for the Trinity, McGiffert asserts, ‘Justin insisted that Christ came from God; he did not identify him with God’ (107). Justin’s God was ‘a transcendent being, who could not possibly come into contact with the world of men and things’ (107).
Not only was the Church divided by Gnosticism, enticed by philosophy, and set upon by paganism, but there was a geographic division as well. The East (centered in Alexandria) and the West (centered in Rome) grew along two different lines. Kelly shows how the East was intellectually adventurous and speculative (4), a reflection of the surrounding Greek culture. The theological development of the East is best represented in Clement and Origen.
Clement of Alexandria (c.150-220) was from the ‘Catechetical School’ of Alexandria. His views were influenced by Gnosticism (Bauer 56-57), and McGiffert affirms, ‘Clement insists that philosophy came from God and was given to the Greeks as a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ as the law was a schoolmaster for the Hebrews’ (183). McGiffert further states that Clement considered ‘God the Father revealed in the Old Testament’ separate and distinct from the ‘Son of God incarnate in Christ,’ with whom he identified the Logos (206). Campbell summarizes that ‘[with Clement the] philosophic spirit enters frankly into the service of Christian doctrine, and with it begins... the theological science of the future’ (36). However, it was his student, Origen, who ‘achieved the union of Greek philosophy and Christianity’ (39).
Origen (c.185-253) is considered by Campbell to be the ‘founder of theology’ (41), the greatest scholar of the early church and the greatest theologian of the East (38). Durant adds that ‘with [Origen] Christianity ceased to be only a comforting faith; it became a full-fledged philosophy, buttressed with scripture but proudly resting on reason’ (Caesar 615). Origen was a brilliant man. At 18 he succeeded Clement as president of the Alexandrian school. Over 800 titles were attributed to him by Jerome. He traveled extensively and started a new school in Cesarea.
In Origen we find an important link in the changing view of God. According to Pelikan’s Historical Theology, Origen was the ‘teacher of such orthodox stalwarts as the Cappadocian Fathers’ (22) but also the ‘teacher of Arius’ (22) and the ‘originator of many heresies’ (22). Centuries after his death, he was condemned by councils at least five times; however, both Athanasius and Eusebius had great respect for him.
As he tried to reckon the ‘incomprehensible God’ with both Stoic and Platonic philosophy, Origen presented views that could support both sides of the Trinity argument. He believed the Father and Son were separate ‘in respect of hypostasis’ (substance), but ‘one by harmony and concord and identity of will’ (qtd. in Lonergan 56). He claimed the Son was the image of God.
In the way in which, according to the bible story, we say that Seth is the image of his father, Adam. For thus it is written: ‘And Adam begot Seth according to his own image and likeness.’ Image, in this sense, implies that the Father and the Son have the same nature and substance. (qtd. in Lonergan 58)
He also maintained that there was a difference between the God and God when he said ‘_ß _&hibar; 2, __is indeed the God [God himself].... Whatever else, other than him who is called _ß _&hibar; 2, __, is also God, is deified by participation, by sharing in his divinity, and is more properly to be called not the God but simply God’ (qtd. in Lonergan 61).
As Greek influence and Gnosticism became introduced into the Eastern church, it became more mystical and philosophical. The simple doctrines that Jesus taught to the uneducated gave way to the complex and sophisticated arguments of Origen."
