The Development of the Trinity Theology

Trinitarian theology did not yet exist when the monotheistic Bible was written. It developed gradually through later debates, creeds, and definitions into a theology to which churches could conform.

A common argument by Trinitarians is that the concept already existed since Genesis 1, but it was only later developement that made it possible to formally explain this complex philosophy. However, Paul himself warns against this reasoning:

This implies that if Christ did not explain the Modalism, Partialism, Subordinationism, Trinitarianism or any other philosophy, then these traditions are not from Christ.

Monotheism

~1300 BC: Shema

Moses made the monotheistic declaration to the Israelites that only one God exists:

~500 BC: Zechariah's Declaration

The prophet Zechariah states that only one God exists:

~450 BC: Malachi's Declaration

The prophet Malachi states that only one God exists:

~30 AD: Jesus quoted the Shema

Jesus quoted the Shema that Moses declared according to Mark 12:29.

~60 AD: Paul's Monotheistic declaration

According to 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul also taught that only one God existed.

Paul presents God as Christ’s head:

The Apostle Paul frequently used the phrasing "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" in his letters to the early churches: Ephesians 1:3; Ephesians 1:17, Romans 15:6; 2 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 11:31

Paul's model:

Hierarchical Triad

Around 165 AD Justin Martyr did not describe the later Nicene model of three coequal persons sharing one essence. His surviving writings present a hierarchical order:

1. The Father is the only unbegotten God and Maker of everything.
2. The Son is also called Logos and Wisdom. The Father begot him before all creatures. He is numerically distinct from and subject to the Father.
3. The prophetic Spirit occupies third place. Justin associates the Spirit with prophecy but does not clearly explain the Spirit’s origin or ontological nature.

Justin calls the Father:

He places the Son and Spirit in an explicit order:

Justin identifies Wisdom with the Son and Logos, rather than treating Sophia as another divine member:

He says that the Father begot this Logos before creation:

Justin describes the Logos as distinct from the Father without being separated from the Father’s substance:

He also calls the Logos:

Modalism

In the late 2nd century, Noetus is often recognized as the first to openly preach Modalism.

Praxeas brought these ideas to Rome and North Africa. He famously drew the ire of Tertullian, who wrote a massive treatise against him (Adversus Praxean). Tertullian famously mocked Praxeas’s strict stance by writing that Praxeas "did two works for the devil in Rome: he drove out prophecy and he brought in heresy; he put to flight the Paraclete Holy Spirit and he crucified the Father."

Sabellius was a Christian priest, the most famous proponent of this theology, and was therefore excommunicated by Pope Callixtus I. Sabellius wrote:

Modalism often compares God with water. Just as water has 3 modes (ice, water, gas), they believe God has 3 modes (Father, Son, Spirit).

However, this theology fails when:

• Jesus prays to the Father
• Father loves the Son
• Father sends the Spirit
• Spirit points people to the Son

According to Modalism, the Father is His own son!

Modalism fails when Daniel (Daniel 7:14), Stephen (Acts 7:55-56), and John (Revelation 4:2 and 5:2-6) saw Jesus as a distinct person from God.

Trinitas

In the third century, Tertullian used the Latin term Trinitas, meaning “Trinity”. He distinguished one substance from three persons. This Latin distinction came before the later Greek distinction between ousia and hypostasis.

Tertullian's version differed from later Nicene formulations. Although he spoke of one God, one substance, and three distinct persons, he also:

1. Called the Father “the entire substance” and greater than the Son.
2. Described the Son as “a derivation and portion of the whole”.
3. Placed the Spirit third in order.

Tertullian compares:

• The Father is like the roots
• The Son is like the shoot (what we see)
• The Spirit is like the fruit (what we enjoy)
• Yet all 3 components are 1 tree

Another popular example is:

• The Father is like the sun (energy source)
• The Son is like the rays (what we see)
• The Spirit is like ray point (warmth we feel)
• Yet all 3 components are considered sunlight

Although Tertullian was technically not a Partialist, his language may resemble partialism.

Subordinationism

Subordinationism is a broad term for views in which the Son is subordinate to the Father. The claimed difference may concern authority, origin, or nature.

This theology influenced Origen of Alexandria, who laid massive structural foundations for Christian theology.

For example "On Prayer" (De Oratione) in Chapter XV (15), Section 1–4, Origen systematically argues against praying directly to the Son or the Holy Spirit as distinct final recipients, maintaining instead that the ultimate object of worship and prayer must be God the Father alone (Case, 2006). However, because of the distinct roles within the Trinity, this prayer is offered by means of the mediation of the Son and is empowered within the context of the Holy Spirit (Rambo, n.d.).

However, the Subordinationist theology fails the Nicene formula because it leads to a chain of command:

1. The Father is the most important authority
2. The Son has lesser authority
3. The Spirit has the least authority

Arianism

In 318 AD, Arius from Alexandria began preaching his theology that Jesus, the Son of God, was created by God and not eternally divine or of the same substance as God the Father. This challenged the Subordinationism view that Jesus is God and split the church, resulting in Arianism.

Nicene Creed

Because of Arianism, church leaders gathered in 325 AD at the council of Nicaea to prevent further church splits by:

• defining the divinity of Jesus;
• condemning Arianism as heretical;
• establishing church hierarchy;
• separating Christian practices from Jewish traditions;

The council primarily defined the relationship between the Father and the Son. Its creed mentioned belief in the Holy Spirit but did not explain the Spirit’s divinity, procession, or relationship to the Father and the Son.

The Nicene Creed declared:

The creed made these claims about the Son:

1. Homoousios, also called consubstantial, means “same essence”. In Trinitarian teaching, the Son shares the Father's one divine essence and is fully divine. This does not mean two separate gods of the same kind.
2. Begotten, Not Made means that the Son comes from the Father without being created. Later theology denies that this is a physical birth or a division of God.
3. True God from True God means that the Son is fully divine, not merely a lesser second god or a reflection of the true light.

These are doctrinal claims, not conclusions established by the word meanings alone. The simple definitions explain the terms.

This theology is also not without problems:

The Problem with "Homoousios"

In 4th-century Greek philosophy, the word "ousia" (substance) was notoriously ambiguous:

• Primary substance means a particular individual thing, such as this horse. The criticism is: If ‘same substance’ means the same individual, the Father and the Son appear to be the same person. This would resemble Modalism.
• Secondary substance means a shared kind, such as being human. The criticism is: If the Father and the Son share only a kind, they appear to be separate gods of the same divine species. This would resemble Tritheism, belief in three distinct gods of the same "divine species".

The Problem with "Begotten, Not Made"

The language of "begetting" cannot be logically applied to a timeless God who is not made of physical material, because:

• In nature a father exists before his child, and birth happens at a point in time. Applying this language to a Son without a beginning needs justification.
• Physical birth produces a separate child. If this is taken literally of God, it would make the divine essence divisible or material.

The Problem with "True God from True God"

The word “from” (Greek ek) names a source. If the Father is the source of the Son's existence, the Son depends on the Father. This dependence needs to be reconciled with the claim of equal divinity.

For comparison, Jesus says:

Other literal interpretation of certain scriptures (Psalm 2:7; 2 Samuel 7:14; Isaiah 7:14-16; Mark 10:18, 13:32; Luke 1:30-35, 2:52; John 3:34, 5:19, 5:26, 8:28, 14:28; Acts 1:11; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 15:28, 15:46; Galatians 4:4; Hebrews 2:18; Revelation 1:18) also affirms that the Son is NOT co-equal with the Father.

Logically, you cannot have an entity that is completely equal while being dependent on an external source for its being.

Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed

The creed adopted at Nicaea in 325 did not provide a developed doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It ended that part of its confession with only: “And in the Holy Spirit.” The creed commonly called the Nicene Creed today is the expanded form traditionally associated with the First Council of Constantinople in 381. Its more precise name is the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

It retained Nicaea’s teaching about the Father and the Son, but expanded its statement about the Holy Spirit:

This addition established several important claims:

1. The Holy Spirit is Lord and the source of life.
2. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.
3. The Holy Spirit is worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son.
4. The Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets.

The original Greek creed said that the Spirit proceeds “from the Father.” Western churches later added the words “and the Son”, known by the Latin term Filioque. This addition was not part of the creed associated with Constantinople and became a major disagreement between Eastern and Western Christianity.

The most contested Trinitarians believes are:

1. “There is only 1 God.” This is required by the Shema in the Bible. Without it, they would acknowledge paganism (many gods).
2. “Jesus is not the Father.” According to the Bible they interacted with each other and had different wills (persons). Jesus was not God's avatar or puppet show.
3. “Jesus is fully human.” According the Bible Jesus was human. If not, then Jesus did not die, did not represent humanity and deceived his disciples.
4. “The Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.” According to their own creed. If they dismiss it, then they invalidate their own creed.

The problem with consolidating all these points of the Nicene theology is that:

• To say all 3 Trinity Members are 1 God and 1 person, just different modes/names: is Modalism.
• To say all 3 Trinity Members are parts of 1 God: is Partialism
• To say all 3 Trinity Members are 1 God and 1 mind, but 3 different personalities: is a fragmented/split/mixed personality God (nobody will accept it)
• To say only the Father is Almighty God and Jesus was a lessor god/angel: is Arianism

The simple solution is to dismiss statement #4 and accept there is truly only 1 God, the Father, and that Jesus is not God, but the Son of God, the Christ, a human Lord glorified by his God.

However, Trinitarians solve this problem by adding a few more yet another unbiblical definition to solve the Son's "Dual-Nature" problem.

Dual-Nature

In 451, the Council of Chalcedon defined Christ as one person existing in two natures, divine and human, “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.”

The reasoning is that this Dual-Nature explain how Jesus could simultaneous:

1. be the divine immortal allmighty omniscient omnipresent "Son of God" to satisfy the Trinity doctrine, and
2. be the human "Son of Man" whenever a scripture require a human Jesus. Therefore Trinitarians have no problem to acknoledge that Jesus was a human even when the concept of a human Jesus contradict the Trinity.

A later Western document, the Athanasian Creed, states the essence and person formula quoted above. It describes the three persons as coeternal, meaning without a beginning in time, and coequal, meaning equal in divinity.

The final solution is to use abstract Greek philosophy and words like hypostasis and consubstantiality to make a blatant contradiction sound like a complex deep spiritual mystery. Therefore some Trinitarians will quote scriptures like 1 Timothy 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 13:12 out of context to prove that people must have faith in "the mysteries of God".

Despite the definition of the "Dual-Nature" it is still hard to explain how it is possible that Jesus could be both God and have an incompatible human nature simultaneous. To solve that problem they would assert that people cannot comprehend an infinite, immaterial, higher-dimensional God that exists outside space and time with a finite brain.

For comparison, James writes:

Conclusion

The Trinitarian theology is a later development beyond biblical monotheism, shaped by attempts to reconcile claims about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Monotheism, Hierarchical Triad, Nicene Creed, and Dual-Nature trace this development.