Barely two decades after Christ’s death and resurrection, the Apostle Paul wrote that many believers were already “turning away…. to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). A “very different” church, teaching “another Jesus” and a “different gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:4) emerged, and grew in power and influence. This was the setting in which the doctrine of the Trinity emerged.
Various ideas sprang up as to the exact nature of Jesus Christ. Was He a mere man who became God? Was He created by God the Father, or did He exist eternally? Many borrowed or adapted from pagan religions, replacing and changing the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles. (See the chapter ‘The Rise of a Counterfeit Christianity‘ in our free study guide ‘The Church Jesus Built’ and, ‘How Ancient Trinitarian Gods Influenced The Adoption Of The Trinity’ in our study guide ‘Is God A Trinity?‘ for an overview of this critical period.).
“The term ‘Trinity’ is not itself found in the Bible. It was first used by Tertullian at the close of the 2nd century, but received wide currency and formal elucidation [clarification] only in the 4th and 5th centuries” (New Bible Dictionary, 1996, “Trinity”). The same source goes on to explain that “the formal doctrine of the Trinity was the result of several inadequate attempts to explain who and what the Christian God really is….To deal with these problems the Church Fathers met in [A.D.] 325 at the Council of Nicaea to set out an orthodox biblical definition concerning the divine identity.” However, it wasn’t until 381, “at the Council of Constantinople, [that] the divinity of the Spirit was affirmed” (ibid.).
The dispute over the nature of Christ came to be known as the Arian controversy. Arius, a priest from Alexandria, Egypt, taught that Christ, because He was the Son of God, must have had a beginning and therefore was a special creation of God. Opposing the teachings of Arius was Athanasius, a deacon also from Alexandria. His view was an early form of Trinitarianism regarding the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one, but at the same time distinct from each other.
When it came to the Nicene Council, The Encyclopaedia Britannica states: “Constantine… actively guiding the discussions… personally proposed… the crucial formula expressing the relation of Christ to God in the creed issued by the council… Overawed by the emperor, the bishops, with two exceptions only, signed the creed, many of them much against their inclination” (1971 edition, Vol. 6, “Constantine,” p. 386).
The groundwork for official acceptance of the Trinity was now laid, but the ongoing disagreements were at times violent and bloody with many claiming to be Christian slaughtering one another over their differing views of God. When referring to the aftermath of the Council of Nicaea, noted historian Will Durant writes, “Probably more Christians were slaughtered by Christians in these two years (342-3) than by all the persecutions of Christians by pagans in the history of Rome” (The Story of Civilization, Vol. 4: The Age of Faith, 1950, p. 8).
Forty-four years after Constantine’s death, in the year 381, the Council of Constantinople was convened. Gregory of Nazianzus, as archbishop of Constantinople, presided over the council and urged the adoption of his view of the Holy Spirit, leading “… the Council of Constantinople (381) to affirm the divinity of the Holy Spirit, which up to that point had nowhere been clearly stated, not even in Scripture” (The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism, “God,” p. 568).
After this decision had been reached, the Roman Emperor Theodosius would not tolerate dissenting views and issued an edict demanding adherence to the new teaching: “Let us believe the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity…but as for the others…we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics…They will suffer… the punishment which our authority, in accordance with the will of Heaven, shall decide to inflict” (reproduced in Documents of the Christian Church, Henry Bettenson, editor, 1967, p. 22).
Centuries later, Martin Luther, the German priest who initiated the Protestant Reformation, conceded, “It is indeed true that the name ‘Trinity’ is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures, but has been conceived and invented by man” (reproduced in The Sermons of Martin Luther, John Lenker, editor, Vol. 3, 1988, p. 406). Similar sentiments concerning the subject of the trinity can be found in other respected publications such as A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia and The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary. All these publications admit the concept of the trinity cannot be found in the Bible and, as the Bible is our only reliable source of divine revelation, the conclusion that must be drawn is that it is simply not part of God’s revelation to humanity.
