The Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. It should be noted that the concept of personhood in the Trinity does not match the common Western understanding of "person" as used in the English language—it does not imply an "individual, self-actualized center of free will and conscious activity." To the ancients, personhood "was in some sense individual, but always in community as well." The doctrine states that God is the Triune God , existing as three persons , or in the Greek hypostases , but one being. Each of the persons is understood as having the one identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures. Since the beginning of the third century the doctrine of the Trinity has been stated as "the one God exists in three Persons and one substance, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Trinitarianism , belief in the Trinity, is a mark of Oriental and Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and all the mainstream traditions arising from the Protestant Reformation, such as Anglicanism, Methodism, Lutheranism and Presbyterianism. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes the Trinity as "the central dogma of Christian theology".
This doctrine is in contrast to Nontrinitarian positions which include Binitarianism (one deity/two persons), Unitarianism (one deity/one person), the Oneness belief held by certain Pentecostal groups, Modalism, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' view of the Godhead as three separate beings who are one in purpose rather than essence.
The New Testament does not have a formal doctrine of the Trinity and nowhere discusses the Trinity as such. However, Southern Baptist Theologian Frank Stagg emphasizes that the New Testament does repeatedly speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—in such a way as to "compel a trinitarian understanding of God." The doctrine developed from the biblical language used in New Testament passages such as the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 and took substantially its present form by the end of the 4th century as a result of controversies in which some theologians, when speaking of God, used terms such as "person", "nature", "essence", "substance", terms that had never been used by the Apostolic Fathers, in a way that the Church authorities considered to be erroneous.
Some deny that the doctrine that developed in the fourth century was based on Christian ideas, and hold instead that it was a deviation from Early Christian teaching on the nature of God or even that it was borrowed from a pre-Christian conception of a divine trinity held by Plato.
Etymology
The English word Trinity is derived from Latin Trinitas , meaning "the number three, a triad". This abstract noun is formed from the adjective trinus (three each, threefold, triple), as the word unitas is the abstract noun formed from unus (one).
The corresponding word in Greek is Τριάς , meaning "a set of three" or "the number three".
The first recorded use of this Greek word in Christian theology (though not about the Divine Trinity) was by Theophilus of Antioch in about 170. He wrote:
"In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity , of God, and His Word, and His wisdom. And the fourth is the type of man, who needs light, that so there may be God, the Word, wisdom, man."
Tertullian, a Latin theologian who wrote in the early third century, is credited with using the words "Trinity", "person" and "substance" to explain that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are "one in essence—not one in Person".
About a century later, in 325, the First Council of Nicaea established the doctrine of the Trinity as orthodoxy and adopted the Nicene Creed, which described Christ as "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance ( homoousios ) with the Father".
References used from Scripture
The New Testament does not use the word "Τριάς" (Trinity) nor explicitly teach it, but provides the material upon which the doctrine of the Trinity is based. It required reflection by the earliest Christians on the coming of Jesus and of what they believed to be the presence and power of God among them, which they called the Holy Spirit; and it associated the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in such passages as the Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" and Paul the Apostle's blessing: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all," while at the same time not contradicting the Jewish Shema Yisrael: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Apart from the passages that speak of Father Son and Holy Spirit, there are many passages that refer to God and Jesus without also referring to the Spirit.
According to Christian tradition the Trinity was introduced by the Gospels and Jesus Christ himself "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." Jesus thus mentions the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in a phrase that may suggest that there is one name that encompasses all three.
The Old Testament refers to God's Word, his Spirit, and Wisdom. These have been interpreted as foreshadows of the doctrine of the Trinity, as have been also narratives such as the appearance of the three men to Abraham. Some Church Fathers believed that a knowledge of the mystery was granted to the Prophets and saints of the Old Dispensation, and that they identified the divine messenger of Genesis 16:7 , 21:17 , 31:11 , Exodus 3:2 and Wisdom of the sapiential books with the Son, and "the spirit of the Lord" with the Holy Spirit.
However, it is generally agreed that it would go beyond the intention and spirit of the Old Testament to correlate these notions directly with later Trinitarian doctrine.
The Gospel of John opens by declaring, as usually translated: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." The rest of John Chapter 1 makes it clear that "the Word" refers to Jesus Christ. Thus John introduces a seemingly impossible contradiction, that Jesus both "was with God" and "was God" at the same time, and that was true from the beginning of creation. John also portrays Jesus Christ as the creator of the Universe, such that "without him nothing was made that has been made."
The Apostle John is identified as the "one whom Jesus loved" thus perhaps being the closest Apostle to Jesus. Jesus also instructed John to adopt Jesus' mother Mary as John's own in Mary's old age such that John would have had the entire knowledge of Jesus' family when writing his Gospel. Some scholars question this, however, as the gospel of John is believed to have been written circa AD 85-90.
Jesus frequently referred to the "Father" as God as distinct from himself, but also discussed "The Holy Spirit" as a being distinct from either God the Father or Jesus himself.
These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
– John 14:25-26
In this passage, Jesus portrays the Father sending the Holy Spirit—that is the Father and the Holy Spirit are two distinctly different persons, and portrays both the Father and the Holy Spirit as distinct from Jesus himself. Thus even apart from whether Jesus was God, Jesus declares that the Father and the Holy Spirit are two different persons, both of them divine. In the same way, the Old Testament frequently refers to "the Spirit of God" as something slightly different from God himself.
The fourth Gospel also elaborates on the role of Holy Spirit, sent as an advocate for believers. The immediate context of these verses was providing "assurance of the presence and power of God both in the ministry of Jesus and the ongoing life of the community"; but, beyond this immediate context, these verses raised questions of relationship between Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, especially as concerns their distinction and their unity. These questions were hotly debated over the ensuing centuries, and mainstream Christianity resolved the issues by drawing up creeds.
However, some scholars dispute the authenticity of the Trinity and argue that the doctrine
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