History of the Holy Trinity

[Ronald J. Brotzman]

Ineed instruction. I have a good Christian (?) friend, who has given me cite after cite from the New Testament and the early church fathers which seems to refute the assertions of St Athanasus in his definition and arguments before Nicea I. Justin the Marytr for example in his apologies refers to Chirst as the Son of God, making him divine but not part of the God head. ST Paul, ST John in their various writings also refer to Chirst in less than Trinitarian concept. Do not doubt for one minute that I am completely dogmatic in my assertion of the definition of Christ and the Holy Spirit being all equal parts of the God head, that is not my point, but my piont is where is St Athanasus' arguments contained in tradition and scripture, as well as practice that was so overwhelminigly adopted at Nicea I Constantinople

[Owen Jones]

Most Christology prior to Nicea was in some sense subordinationist.

[Herman Blaydoe]

In Scripture, how about John 1:1? How about Genesis where God uses the plural pronoun "We" and "Us"?

When did the Holy Church begin praying: "When Christ our God was baptised in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was revealed, for the voice of the Father bore witness to You and called You His Beloved Son. And the Spirit, in the form of a dove, confirmed the Truthfulness of His Word. O Christ our God, who has revealed Yourself, Glory to You!"

[dianne marie debs]

The reference in Genesis that you are bringing up was questioned by my 18 years old in her Cultural Studies Course in Uni.

I saw that this is the first reference to the Holy Trinity. And I ,of course , the mother you constantly waits for the littlest creak to give her daughter an opinion against the free attitudes our youth hold, jumped at the oppurtunity to tell her this. We live in a multi- culture society. I told her that any person after reading that verse could not have the right to judge the Holy Trinity, this I emphasize because there are alot of Moslims in her Uni.

After, I asked my parish priest who is well educated in the Bible, he agreed with what I told my daughter.

If only the human race would careful read the scriptures.

Anything we read or learn about Our Lord come from the true foundation being the Scriptures.

God Bless
A humble servant of Our Lord
Dianne

[Priest David Moser]

Another early reference to the Trinity in the Old Testament is the confession of faith of the Jews - the "Shema". "Hear O Israel, the Lord, your God, the Lord is One." In this statement, we see not only the confession of "One God" but also the three-fold calling upon the Lord - "the Lord" "your God" and "the Lord". Although the Jews do not understand it aright this is a clear pre-incarnational confession of the dogma of the Trinity - three persons in one essence.

A good essay on the importance of the dogma of the Trinity (why it does make a difference in how we live our lives and work out our salvation) is Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)'s essay on "The Moral Idea of the Dogma of the Trinity". It is translated into English by Archbishop Lazar (Puhalo) - at present a retired hierarch in the OCA - and is published by Synaxis Press.

Priest David Moser

[Herman Blaydoe]

It would appear that the Holy Apostle Thomas was rather convinced when he exclaimed "My Lord and My God!" when our Lord appeared in the upper room (John 20:28).

[Rebecca]

Also, Genesis 18

Link to Rublev's Icon of the Holy Trinity (http://www.rollins.edu/Foreign_Lang/Russian/rutrin.jpg)

There's a beautiful description of the above icon in the book "The Meaning of Icons" too...

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Ronald,

I do not know were St. Athanasius' arguments in defense of the church's always having believed and confessed the truth of the Tri-uniitarian nature of the Godhead came from (or even what they were).

The primary scriptural argument IMO is in the Gospel according to John in which Jesus is quoted as identifying himself with the God Who "names" Himself in the tetragramaton: YHWH, for "I AM" is how it comes out in the Greek (rather "I Am the One Being --On (long "O", sounds like OWN), and Jesus said, "Before Abraham was I AM." One place where Jesus clearly identified himself as God. It is agreed by one and all that Jesus claimed to be "Son of God," and if the Man who claimed Himself the Son of God, also identified as the God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush, and further clarified the fact by asserting that He was One (in purpose) wiith the Father, then He has to be asserting that there are at least more than one Person in the Godhead. Add to this the fact that the Hebrew word "echad" in "Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad," did not originally mean a discrete singularity but a composite unity, and we see that there are at least two Persons in this composite. Next consider the fact that, as in Attic and earlier Greek, the semitic languages such as Hebrew had in ancient times, besides singular and plural forms, also a dual form, and that those plurals God used in referring to Himself could, indeed would have been duals if it was true that the Godhead was limited to a "bi-unity," and we are left with the observation that the plurality in the composite unity of the Godhead is not less than three.

Jesus also asserted that He was "Paraclete" for humanity, at least for believing humanity, and told his disciples before He left that He would be sending another paraclete, to take his place whith them while He continuted in Heaven representing us there before the Father. This Paraclete, whom Jesus sends by praying the Father that He send him proceeds from the Father, in some mysterious way analogous to Jesus' own onlybegottenness from the same Father. Thus, we have the Third person of the Trinity introduced by Jesus.

Jesus limits the number of persons in the Godhead to three when he instructs the Apostles to baptize in the Triniarian name. Salvation can come only from God, and it comes by being taken back into God. If baptisim into His name means baptism into his being, then He has given us His true name in the "names" of the persons of the Godhead. Thus, there are no more nor less than Three persons in the Godhead, and they are the Father to Whom Jesus has brought us, Jesus Himself Whom the Father has begotten (and is always begetting) and sent, and the Holy Spirit, always proceeding from the Father who with the Son (or rather, on account of the Son's prayers) has sent.

Your interlocuters may demure, but this is all in scripture.

Richard the Lutheran (who worships the same God in Trinity that you Orthodox worship, though we Lutherans are at best confused about the Procession).

[Fr Averky]

I have been taught that the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit, who "proceeds from the Father," and the Son is "born of the Father before all ages," which then defines the Procession. The Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, descended upon the Apostles at Pentecost, filling them with Grace, fearlessness, and fervour. The Filioque, of course, states that the Holy Spirit proceeds fom the Father and the Son," but that is not what Jesus Christ Himself says.

Fr. A.

[Daniel Jeandet]

Sripture is used to support thousands of notions and fantasies.

Some people find evidence of evolution theory in scripture, or aliens, or whatever. Denying the Holy Trinity is as far from truth as any of these.


Im not sure how effective arguements based on the Scripture can be against counter arguements stated by someone who already thinks he understands Scripture. I would suggest you would be wasting your precious time and energy trying to convince them that their understanding of Scripture is wrong and that yours is right, just because you have access to a tradition that they clearly reject from the outset.

Silence works best against heresy. Give it all the attention it deserves. When people see that you dont need to argue with them, that your faith is real enough for you to leave them to God and keep your precious peace, they will begin to wonder what you have that they havent, and one day, by Gods Grace, they will ask you what it is that you believe, and this time they will listen.

So much happens invisibly, mysteriously. Leave your friend in Gods care, to love them is enough, and hard enough! Convincing them you know better where Love is born, is this a reasonable yearning?

Forgive me if i sound like i can tell you stuff. I have struggled with things like this, and I have found that to treat it as a temptation and a test of your own faith, by keeping silent and letting go of needing to be right or convince others, can bring enourmous inner rewards. For us in the world, I think this is one of the forms our praxis takes, ascetecism of the tounge.

[Justin]

Ineed instruction. I have a good Christian (?) friend, who has given me cite after cite from the New Testament and the early church fathers which seems to refute the assertions of St Athanasus in his definition and arguments before Nicea I.

A good resource would be Saint Gregory the Theologian's Five Theological Orations (http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-42.htm#P4178_1277213) for a couple of reasons. First, St. Gregory was familiar with the Alexandrian thinkers, and had read at least a few of Athanasius' works (and had probably heard much more in discussions). Second, St. Gregory is the first person in which a truly, explicitly, boldly trinitarian theology is articulated. This doesn't mean that no one before him was a Trinitarian, what it does mean is that he was the first to state it in such a way that a light went off in everyone's head and they said "yeah, there it is, that's what we've known but haven't been able to put into words!"

[Alvin Kimel]

Ronald,

Your friend is partially right. There was some early confusion at the theological level concerning the identity of Jesus the Son, and it took three centuries for the Church to come to real clarity on the matter.

On the one hand there was the Jewish affirmation of the one God, which introduced a clear demarcation between God and all of his creatures. On the other hand, there was the the typical pagan apprehension of divinity as being a continuum. And then along came the apostolic Christians who confessed the Jewish God yet who also prayed to and worshipped the son of Mary, Jesus.

Thus it was very tempting for Gentile Christians to adopt a more pagan-like approach to divinity, with God the Father at the top of the continuum and Jesus somewhere between him and the rest of humanity. Arius was not alone in his views and he had his predecessors. His virtue was that he put the matter so sharply that it forced the Church to finally clarify its understanding, once and for all.

What clinched matters for Nicaea was the recognition that the inherited Jewish understanding of deity did not allow degrees of divinity. Jesus is either God or he is a creature, but he can not be something in-between.

But if he is a creature, then (1) we are committing idolatry by praying to and worshipping Jesus ,and (2) Jesus cannot be our savior, because only God can save. Since both of these are unacceptable, then we are forced to confess, with Athanasius, the homoousion: Jesus Christ is of one being with the Father.

Take a look at Boris Bobrinskoy's The Mystery of the Trinity

[Moses Anthony]

Dear Daniel Jeandet,

To your "...ascetecism of the tongue.", for our age I would add the computer keyboard, unless it's covered in your phrase. Great phrase!

[Fr Averky]

Dear Alvin,

Thank you for your good answer, and thank you for posting again. It was a joy and a blessing to see your name!

Fr. A.

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Alvin (and company)

And I'll clarify, if I may on "(1) we are committing idolatry by praying to and worshipping Jesus," by pointing our that we were indeed praying to Jesus, and had been for the past three hundered or more years when we said that, thus pointing out the value of Tradition, particularly as expressed liturgically.

Richard

P.s., for Father Averky's sake: Not that that would be a valid argument for a Lutheran to make, it is still historically true. ---R