In this paper, my aim is to show why the recently vast number of online debates against Trinity have been a waste of time and do not debunk core Christian theology. Moreover, anti-trinitarians – such as Muslim, unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, LDS, Oneness Pentecostals, and so on — are just repackaging ancient alternatives to Christian theology that collapse under the weight of tried and true philosophical and theological scrutiny.
Using a combination of Scripture and writings from the Church Fathers and other early Christian writers, I will precisely demonstrate that Christians have not only always believed in the triune God, but that the Trinity is the perfect model for what love and goodness mean to all of existence and to humankind’s relationship with God. In other words, the Trinity is not only what it is so that we can have a proper definition of God, but also that we can fully appreciate love and goodness as what both is the divine and what eternally emanates from it.
Furthermore, although God has been made known to humankind through Revelation and what has been captured in Scripture, God remains a mystery beyond human cognition. What is more, there is a beauty in the mystery that we should embrace rather than reductively try to engineer into a theological schematic.
Still, it is not that the God as triune is the best explanation because Christians blindly say so. It is that the alternative explanations live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance, always evading or self-interpreting the Scriptural foundation for the Trinity — or using linguistic trickery to coerce the masses that early Christians never viewed Jesus as equal to the Father in divinity. Meanwhile, the views among non-trinitarians have ranged from Jesus having a semi-acquired divinity, or a “try before you buy” divinity, or that Jesus was a product of creation who was arbitrarily chosen to be an intermediary or strictly human messenger between God and humankind.
Introduction
Now, before I lay out the case for why trinitarian theology has been consistent for the past 2000 years, and why the Trinity is a necessary concept to existence, let’s begin with an introduction to a human problem that has influenced incessant debates about Christian belief.
Since the dawn of the Catholic Church in around 33 AD, waves of splinter groups have risen up and often aggressively attempted to overthrow core Christian theology and ecclesiology. The first five centuries of Church history alone were an utter bonanza of heretical movements wanting to declare dominance about how to define Christ’s nature and relationship with the God the Father. At the core of these movements were charismatic, intellectual heavyweights who had mastered speech and debate, yet turned out to be charlatans or ego maniacs through their persistent propaganda about holding the ‘golden ticket’ of theological knowledge privileged only to them and not to the masses.
In the late Middle Ages, rebranded forms of Gnosticism, such as the Albigensians, had their fifteen minutes of fame; meanwhile, Eastern churches, which were on again and off again with the Catholic Church between 1054 and the mid-fifteenth century, wrestled with Western Churches over the Filioque portion of the Creed, the degree of authority that Eastern patriarchs should share with the Pope, and to what extent the Western / Latin rite Liturgy should influence Eastern liturgies,.
Then there was the Protestant Reformation — or more aptly a revolt. Reformers sprung up left and right in the sixteenth century and beyond, traversing the ages of Discovery and Enlightenment along the way, and thus igniting the Restoration movements in the nineteenth century, the Religious Right in the mid-20th century, and a flood of various Christian denominations that have sprouted up in just the past few generations.
Today, because of the always rapid and increasing influence that the Internat has had on every single space and discourse in life, the past several years have been a double-edged sword of making complex conversations about politics and religion an alluring mainstay in the countless podcasts currently dominating the social media landscape — but coupled with an ever growing “debate bro” culture that has been seizing all aspects of discourse and voraciously fueling tribalism. Experts in debate techniques are nearly deified because of their razor-sharp oratory and articulation skills; and their followers spend their days loading up live chat feeds with armchair expert advice, trash talk, and “I know you are, but what am I” playground type spats — all while pledging fierce loyalty to their individual tribes.
Because tribalism is so powerful and typically feeds a gluttonous mob that is pathologically addicted to bloodsport type entertainment, debates between interlocutors and in comments sections have turned into swamp lands of hate, wrath, and the need to “destroy” members of other tribes and their leaders.
To help shovel more controversy and confusion into the minds of an eagerly waiting audience, podcasters and debate channels frequently recycle debate topics as if the umpteenth debate on said topic will reveal a profound, man behind the curtain, ecstatic epiphany that has not already been thoroughly addressed and / or refuted among scholars in academic journals and other peer reviewed publications.
Perhaps the explosive rise of conspiracy theory movements, true crime junkies, and social media algorithms purposely boosting propaganda between opposing camps, has psychologically twisted the content consumer’s thinking into a perpetually doubt-seeking, or tribal validating, existential pretzel.
After all, for skeptics who wish to dominate every domain of human thought, they must always remain, hence, skeptical, while coercing everyone else to be a forever skeptic. That way, it keeps life exciting and the conspiracy camps in an ongoing state of suspense. Or it helps bolster Gnostic type personalities that proudly trumpet to the Internet that they know something nobody else does — despite that an army of consistently credible scholars has already debunked the premise.
Lately, the topic of the Trinity has been in the crosshairs of the “debate bro” culture. The impression often given from click-bait video titles, such as “Trinitarians are false Christians,” or “The Early Christians Did not Believe in Trinity,” is that, after 2000 years of consistent information to the contrary, modern-day, self-proclaimed intellectual heroes have uniquely found the keys to the long-awaited secret sauce or magic bullet that will forever dismantle core Christianity.
Except that is not the case it all. And It is now more than time to put the debate-based propaganda and endless arguments to an end.
Defining “God”
The solution begins with properly defining ‘who’ and ‘what’ is God. Whether you begin with Socratic, Platonic, Neoplatonic, Aristotelian, or other Greek oriented philosophies — and even despite the key distinctions among all — there is still an overall pointer to a perfect source of existence and goodness.
This source can be defined as God because the idea of God is ontologically that which is perfect existence in itself, perfect being in itself, perfect goodness in itself, perfect essence, and perfect substance. Thus, this perfect being is the “to be” — and hence the Hebrew name of Yahweh, which is essentially from the verb “to be.” God is, then, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
The three ‘O’s” to describe God are not simply attributes are special abilities. They are the “It” — meaning that God is what *IS*. Therefore, all power, goodness, and love emanate from the ‘it’ — from the ‘to be’. The Bible confirms this eternal description of God by not only referring to Yahweh as the “to be” (Exod 3:14), but also as the only true God (Deut 6:4; 32:39), and is Spirit (John 4:24).
Nevertheless, God is not quantifiable in a measurable sense; God is not something that we can box within language nor in a material or time-oriented means. We give a definition for God so that we can reasonably comphrehend that the opposite of finite is infinite – which is God the eternal, the invisible, the illimitable, the forever to-be.
To substantiate this notion, what follows are several similar descriptions of God by Church Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, both before and after the Council of Nicaea:
“Our God has no introduction in time. He alone is without beginning, and is himself the beginning of all things. God is a spirit, not attending upon matter, but the maker of material spirits and of the appearances which are in matter. He is invisible, being himself the Father of both sensible and invisible things” {Tatian the Syrian, Address to the Greeks 4 [A.D. 170])
“For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men. He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to himself, since He is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good— even as the religious and pious are wont to speak concerning God.” (St Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies 2:13:3 / 189 AD)
“Being is in God. God is divine being, eternal and without beginning, incorporeal and illimitable, and the cause of what exists. Being is that which wholly subsists. Nature is the truth of things, or the inner reality of them. According to others, it is the production of what has come to existence; and according to others, again, it is the providence of God, causing the being, and the manner of being, in the things which are produced.” (St Clement of Alexandria, On Providence – c. 200 A.D.)
“No one can correctly express him wholly because of his greatness he is ranked as the all, and is the Father of the universe. Nor are there any parts of him. For the One is indivisible; therefore, it is also infinite, and without dimensions, and not having a limit.” (St Clement of Alexandria, On Providence).
“Since our mind is in itself unable to behold God as he is, it knows the Father of the universe from the beauty of his works and from the elegance of his creatures. God, therefore, is not to be thought of as being either a body or as existing in a body, but as a simple intellectual being, admitting within himself no addition of any kind” {Origen, Fundamental Doctrines 1:1:6, 225 A.D.).
“And, lest you insinuate that the name is His only by adoption, it is the absolute God Who speaks to Moses. These are His words:— And the Lord said to Moses, I Am that I Am; and He said, Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, He that is has sent me unto you. (St. Hillary or Poitier On the Trinity Book V, par 6, c. 359 AD)”
“If they say that essence is something distinct, let them not put us in the wrong on the score of simplicity. For they confess themselves that there is a distinction between the essence and each one of the attributes enumerated. The operations are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His operations, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence. His operations come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach ( St. Basil the Great Letter 234, to Amphilochius of Iconium, c. 375 A.D.) .
“Therefore we ought to believe that God is good, eternal, perfect, almighty, and true, such as we find Him in the Law and the Prophets, and the rest of the holy Scriptures, for otherwise there is no God. For He Who is God cannot but be good, seeing that fullness of goodness is of the nature of God: nor can God, Who made time, be in time; nor, again, can God be imperfect, for a lesser being is plainly imperfect, seeing that it lacks somewhat whereby it could be made equal to a greater. This, then, is the teaching of our faith— that God is not evil, that with God nothing is impossible, that God exists not in time, that God is beneath no being. If I am in error, let my adversaries prove it. (St. Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, ch 2.14, c. 379 A.D.).
Based on the above examples, we not only see a common definition of God, but also that multiple, similar descriptors set the stage for why God is triune. Additionally, Tatian’s and Irenaeus’ use of the term ‘Father’ indicates that which is the source of all being and thus without origin.
God is also, as Clement of Alexandria describes, “indivisible”: God is not made up of parts, does not comprise other gods, nor is of other beings or essences or existences. Overall, both the pre-Nicaea and post Nicaea Christian writers proclaim God as the ‘I am’ — as one essence, perfection itself, timeless, spaceless, not material, and goodness itself.
The Trinity
Given the definition of God — including as the eternal source of love and goodness – we have both the philosophical and theological basis for why the Trinity is one in the same as God. First, as we will soon see consistently in Scripture and in the writings of the early Christians, the Trinity has always been understood as three divine persons in one being.
As the early as the second century, Christian writers draw upon multiple Greek words to articulate more in-depth the divine relationship between the Father and the Son. Jesus is already called the Logos (the Word) in the Gospel of John 1:1, and second century Catholics bridge Logos to the terms ouisia / substance and homoousios / of the same substance, or consubstantial with the Father. These terms are therefore already in the theological lexicon; they do not appear out of thin air or are suddenly introduced as a groundbreaking suite of terms at the Council of Nicaea.
And while non-trinitarians tend to exacerbate potential differences in how Church Fathers or other writers described the divine relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the fact is that all of the levied criticisms of trinitarian theology all amount to the same problem that plagues the “everyone is an expert” pandemic in this Internet age: one can be fantastically detailed in creating alternative interpretations of Scripture, religion, politics, history, science, etc. — yet it does not mean that any of what is purported is intellectually superior or even valid in the first place. Some of the most insane thought experiments appear brilliantly devised — but they are still insane. They are severely flawed, historically and rationally incoherent, and utterly crumble when carefully scrutinized.
Which means that when discussing the Trinity, we must look at what has been the consistently held belief about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit since the time of Jesus and the Apostles. Whether one still refuses to accept the belief after all the consistent evidence is presented, that is another matter. But when it comes to Christian theology — which refers to studying, discovering, and describing God’s revelation to humankind — the truth that Christians should believe is the one that has had philosophical and theological continuity for 2000 years.
To begin, in the Gospels, all three divine persons are present at Jesus’ baptism (Matt 3:16-17); Jesus repeatedly refers to the oneness of his relationship with the Father (John 10:30); and Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as having a personhood in function (John 14:16, 26; 15:26). Additionally, after Jesus is resurrected from the dead, he unambiguously commands the Apostles to “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” (Matt 28:19).
Elsewhere in the New Testament, the Apostle Paul greets Christians by saying, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2 Cor 13:13). Paul also says in Galatians 4:4-6: “God sent his Son… And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”.
These examples fit perfectly with Peter’s greeting in his first letter: “in the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification by the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling with the blood of Jesus Christ: may grace and peace be yours in abundance.”
Consequently, there is no evidence of confusion among them writers of the New Testament about the three person-in-one-being relationship that makes the triune God. Moreover, the successors to the Apostles, right within the first century, continue to uphold a fundamental yet theologically synthesized understanding of the Trinity.
One of the best examples is found in the Didache, a handbook for Christian moral and sacramental living that dates back to the first century AD, and which was a common reference in churches for several centuries thereafter. Following Christ’s words in Matthew 28:19, the Didache states, “You baptize this way: Having first said all these things, baptize I the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water.
In the subsequent centuries leading up the Council of Nicaea, multiple Christian writers continue to uphold while also further articulate the triune God. Several examples are as follows:
“Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fullness of God the Father, and predestinated before the ages of time, that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory, being united and elected through the true passion by the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ, our God: Abundant happiness through Jesus Christ, and His undefiled grace.” (Ignatius of Antioch Letter to the Ephesians 1. c. 107 – 110 A.D.)
“Christians are those who more than all the nations on the earth have found the truth. For they know God, the Creator and fashioner of all things through the only-begotten Son and the Holy Spirit” [Aristides of Athens, Apology 15 (c. 140 A.D.).
“It is the attribute of God, of the most high and almighty and of the living God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see and hear all; for he can in no way be contained in a place. . . . The three days before the stars were created are types of the Trinity: God, his Word, and his Wisdom” (Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus 2:15 c. 181 A.D.)
“The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit” (Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 1:10:1, c. 189 A.D.).
“As if in this way one were not all, in that all are of one, by unity of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation that distributes the unity into a Trinity is still guarded, placing in their order the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance” (Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2, c. 218 A.D.).
“Bear always in mind that this is the rule of faith I profess; by it I testify that the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, so you will know in what sense this is said. My assertion is that the Father is one, and the Son one, and the Spirit one, and that they are distinct from each other. This statement is taken in a wrong sense by every uneducated and perversely disposed person, as if it meant a diversity, or implied a separation among the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit” (Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2).
“Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent persons, who are yet distinct one from another. These three are one essence, not one person, as it is said, ‘I and my Father are one’ (John 10:30), in respect of unity of being, not singularity of number” [Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2 ,c. 218 A.D.).
“Putting away all corporeal conceptions, we say that the Word and wisdom was begotten out of the invisible and incorporeal without any corporeal feeling, as if it were an act of the will proceeding from understanding. Nor, seeing that he is called the Son of (his) love, will it appear absurd if he is also called the Son of (his) will. No, John also indicates that “God is Light,” and Paul also declares that the Son is the splendor of everlasting light. As light could not exist without splendor, neither can the Son exist without the Father; for he is called the “express image of his person,” and the Word and Wisdom” (Fundamental Doctrines 4:28 (Origen of Alexandria, c. 225 A.D.).
“Now truly it would be just to take issue with those who destroy the monarchy by dividing and rending it, the most august announcement of the Church of God, into three powers, and distinct substances, and three deities. For I have heard that some who preach and teach the word of God. among you are teachers of this opinion, who indeed are diametrically opposed—so to speak—to the opinion of Sabellius. For he blasphemes in saying that the Son himself is the Father, and vice versa; but these in a certain manner announce three gods, in that they divide the holy unity into three different substances, absolutely separated from one another (Pope St. Dionysius Against the Sabellians 1 A.D. 262)
“But some treat the Holy Trinity in an awful manner, when they confidently assert that there are not three Persons, and introduce [the idea of] a person devoid of subsistence. We reject Sabellius, who says that the Father and the Son are the same, for he believes that the Father is the one who speaks, and the Son is the Word that abides in the Father, and becomes manifest at the time of the creation, and thereafter reverts to God on the fulfilling of all things. The same affirmation he makes also of the Spirit. We renounce this, because we believe that three Persons—namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are declared to possess the one Godhead: For the one divinity showing itself according to nature in the Trinity establishes the oneness of its nature [Gregory Thaumaturgus, Sectional Confession of Faith 7, c. 265. A.D.).
“There is one God. . . . There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Therefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; or anything added on, as if at some former period it was nonexistent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but the same Trinity abides ever without variation and without change (Gregory of Thaumaturgus Declaration of Faith c. 265 A.D.)
““But if they say, “How can there be three Persons, but one divinity?,” we shall make this reply: That there are indeed three Persons, because there is one person of God the Father, and one of the Lord the Son, and one of the Holy Spirit; yet there is only one divinity, because . . . there is one substance in the Trinity” (Gregory of Thaumaturgus, Declaration of Faith, c. 265 A.D.).
We can draw multiple, interwoven conclusions from the examples presented:
1.) Jesus Christ is not only explicitly referred to as God in Scripture, but also in the writing of the early Christians. Ignatius directly calls Jesus God in his letter to the Ephesians; and in the writings of Irenaeus and Tertullian, we see earlier / pre-Nicaea summaries of a common creed regarding the triune God.
2.) The earliest recorded mention of the word “Trinity” is in the second century, and it is connected to Wisdom and Word, two terms found both in Scripture (Prov. 8:22-31; Bar. 3:29-37; Wis. 7; Isaiah 55:10-11; Psalm 33; John 1:1,14; 1 Cor. 1:24) and in Greek philosophy. Theophilus’ use of these terms in ~181 A.D., for instance, describe God as divine being, and we see that the terms function as person-based attributes in a unified relationship with God.
Then, about forty-five years later, Origen also uses the same terms in his explanation of the Trinity. In this instance, Origen uses the concept of light and its splendor as an analogy for the relationship between the Father and the Son. The Father, then, is source of being — or source of all “light” in Origen’s example – and the Son is the eternally generated / begotten splendor of that light, while also the light itself. Origen sums it up succinctly: “As light could not exist without splendor, neither can the Son exist without the Father.”
In this way, Jesus is both Wisdom and Word because he is one in substance, one in being with the Father; and he fulfills these attributes by what is revealed to humankind. This means that the Holy Spirit, by whose power the gift of Wisdom is given to humankind, is also within the one being of God.
Still, the Holy’s Spirit’s relationship with the Father can lead to the question: Does the Holy Spirit originate from both the Father and the Son? The answer is no – for the Father is the origin of all being. However, the Holy Spirit eternally spirates from the Father through the Son and therefore proceeds from both the Father and the Son. This is why the Filioque (The Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son”) is in the Creed that Western Catholics say at Holy Mass: The statement simply affirms the spiration from the Father through the Son — which also means both the Father and the Son send the Spirit (John 14:16, 26; 15:26).
3.) All of the Christian writers mentioned earlier emphasize the divinely symbiotic relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In fact, when referring to “God,” we are collectively identifying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as the one word. It is why in ~425 AD, Cyril of Alexandria remarks in his commentary on the Gospel of John that “to call God ‘Father’ is more exact than to call him ‘God’…if we call him ‘Father’ we show the way in which he is distinct as Person, for we make known the fact that he has a Son”
That does not mean we should avoid saying ‘God’ altogether – especially during conversations or prayer times when it is sometimes necessary to be short and to the point. Rather, saying “God” is the one-word means of saying the one being who is three persons.
In general, though, a common way of describing prayer to God is as “to the Father, through the Son, and by the Holy Spirit.” We pray to the one being — God — although we recognize that the Father is the source of being. The Son is eternally begotten of the source yet is also being. And the Holy Spirit powers and animates the prayers – as well as all spiritual gifts and graces — while also one in being with the Father.
Tertullian, another Christian writer to use the word “Trinity,” likewise proclaims the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while keeping to the words ‘substance’ and ‘essence’ as interchangeable with the term ‘being’ found in the texts of other Christian writers. It is similar to a shell game of terms, in which each of the terms are within a single shell, yet no matter which shell is uncovered, the term and meaning are the same.
Or imagine a game of three shells – one labeled Father, another as ‘Son’, and the third as ‘Spirit’: Each shell is a person, and written inside each shell are the terms being, substance, and essence. The result is the same: no matter which shell is uncovered, the terms all have the same meaning while the shells (persons) are obviously not a single shell.
Moreover, no matter the century that a key Christian writer discusses the Trinity, the descriptions of God and Trinity are strikingly similar and show a continuity of thought among the early Christians. In fact, many of these same writers use the same theological and philosophical reasoning to refute the variety of heretical movements within their respective periods of time.
For example, well before the infamous Arian heresy became popular in the fourth century, Pope Dionysius, in ~262 AD, corrects the Sabellians on their mixed interpretation of the Trinity as the Son being the Father, though it is made up of three forms, or three substances, or three forms of expression, or even three gods. A common term for this heresy is Modalism. And a common analogy is to describe God is like water that can take different forms: rain, ice, and steam.
Nevertheless, Modalism, and other non-trinitarian heresies have been rightfully deemed so because they miss the entire point of the personhood relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Scripture – that personhood is separate from being.
4.) All of the early Christian writers amplify that because God is one substance / of three consubstantial persons, God is, to requote Clement of Alexandria, “indivisible.” Methodius of Phillipi, another pre-Nicaea writer to use the word Trinity, reinforces God’s indivisibility by not only affirming the eternally unified, ontological relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one being in three persons, but also concluding that “For nothing of the Trinity will be diminished, either in respect of eternity, communion, or sovereignty.”
Now, compare how the post-Nicaea Christian writers with pre-Nicaea writers:
“The Trinity” is a Trinity not merely in name or figuratively; rather, it is a Trinity in truth and in actual existence. Just as the Father is he that is, so his Word is one that is and is God over all. And neither is the Holy Spirit nonexistent, but he actually exists and has true being. Less than these the Catholic Church does not hold, lest she sink to the level of the Jews of the present time, imitators of Caiaphas, or to the level of Sabellius (Athanasius of Alexandria, Four Letters to Serapion of Thmuis 1:28, c. 359 A.D.)
“Now this is the declaration of our Faith, that we say that God is One, neither dividing His Son from Him, as do the heathen, nor denying, with the Jews, that He was begotten of the Father before all worlds, and afterwards born of the Virgin; nor yet, like Sabellius, confounding the Father with the Word, and so maintaining that Father and Son are one and the same Person; nor again, as does Photinus, holding that the Son first came into existence in the Virgin’s womb: nor believing, with Arius, in a number of diverse Powers, and so, like the benighted heathen, making out more than one God. For it is written: Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God ” (St. Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, ch 1.6, c. 378 A.D.).
“If, then, God is One, one is the name, one is the power, of the Trinity. Christ Himself, indeed, says: Go, baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19 In the name, mark you, not in the names.” (St. Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, ch 1.8)
“To those who accuse us of a doctrine of three gods, let it be stated that we confess one God, not in number but in nature. For all that is said to be one numerically is not one absolutely, nor is it simple in nature. It is universally confessed, however, that God is simple and not composite” (Evagrius Pontus Dogmatic Letter on the Trinity 8:2, 381 A.D.).
“All those Catholic expounders of the divine Scriptures, both Old and New, whom I have been able to read, who have written before me about the Trinity, who is God, have purposed to teach, according to the Scriptures, this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality; and therefore that they are not three Gods, but one God: although the Father has begotten the Son, so he who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, so he who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but rather the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. He is also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and he belongs to the unity of the Trinity (St. Augustine of Hippo The Trinity 1:4:7, c. 408 A.D.).
“The nature of the Godhead, which is simple and not composite, is never to be divided into two” (Cyril of Alexandria Treasury of the Holy Trinity 11, 424 A.D.).
“[T]here is no other God, nor has there been before now, nor will there be hereafter, except God the Father unbegotten, without beginning, from whom is all beginning, upholding all things, and his Son Jesus Christ, whom we also confess to have been with the Father always—before the world’s beginning. . . . Jesus Christ is the Lord and God in whom we believe . . . and who has poured out the Holy Spirit on us abundantly . . . whom we confess and adore as one God in the Trinity of the sacred name (St. Patrick, Confession of St. Patrick 4, c. 452 A.D.).
“See, in short you have it that the Father is one, the Son another, and the Holy Spirit another; in Person, each is other, but in nature they are the same. In this regard Jesus says: “The Father and I, we are one” [Jn 10:30]. He teaches us that one refers to their nature, and we are to their Persons. In like manner it is said: “There are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit; and these three are one” [1 Jn 5:7]. Let Sabellius hear we are, let him hear three; and let him believe that there are three Persons. Let him not blaspheme in his sacrilegious heart by saying that the Father is the same in himself as the Son is the same in himself and as the Holy Spirit is the same in himself, as if in some way he could beget himself, or proceed from himself. Even in created natures nothing is able to beget itself. Let also Arius hear one; and let him not say that the Son is of a different nature, if one cannot be said of that, the nature of which is different (Fulgence of Ruspe, The Trinity 4:1–2, c. 513 A.D.).
As with the pre-Nicaea Christian writers, the post-Nicaea writers acknowledge God as one in being, as three persons who are the one being, as indivisible, as a consubstantial relationship. Although the thought of the word “relationship” may instantly spark outcries from non-trinitarians that it signals multiple gods — or why does the one God need a relationship at all? — many of the same anti-trinitarians overlook the philosophical and theological importance of love as the ultimate union within the Trinity.
The three persons within one divinity are bound together in an eternal love — an eternal union by which love exists in the first place. If God were not the source of love — if God were not love in itself — what then would be the basis of love? How would we know what love means if we did not have a perfect representation of it?
Further, if love is an act of will directed towards another person, then a God without persons to share in the love is a God who loves only himself: we would have no supreme example of what a shared love in perfect union should look like. Thus, the Trinity is necessary because it reveals to us the first, eternal union of familial love, beginning with God the Father and God the Son, and which the Holy Spirit forever spirates from the Father through Son.
In turn, God’s revelation to humankind is based on a desire to extend the divine, familial love to creation, which is to be an eternally binding, covenant relationship with God. It is why we become adopted sons and daughters of God through baptism, made possible by God’s grace through Christ’s death and resurrection. And it is how we become a new creation in Christ, are offered to live as an eternally spiritual family within God’s kingdom, and are given the sacramental and moral means to become a fully sanctified saint.
Unfortunately, since the beginning of heretical movements against Christian theology, non-trinitarians have had some variation or combination of Sabellian, Arian, Docetism, or Nestorian influenced understanding of the Trinity. Muslims, for instance, often confuse substance with personhood; therefore, they assume that if the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit are divine, they must be independently so and thus three different gods. Because Muslims consider this as “shirk” (blasphemy), all while severely misinterpreting the Christian understanding of the Trinity, they conclude that Christians are actually pagans and not true monotheists.
Except monotheism can mean one God in being and does not automatically disqualify personhood. Being and personhood are separate subjects, though they can be interconnected. As such, if God is being itself, then personhood (prosopon) can be distinct because it is not 1:1 with being or substance (ousia). Two different Greek terms; the separate definitions. In fact, the early Christians and their opponents minimally agree in their debates that the concept of personhood (prosopon), as well as having a specific nature (physeis), could involve varying relationships to one ontology.
For example, I, Cee Vee, am both a person and a human being. I am the same being as other human beings because the human race has a unique set of biochemical markers that cannot take the form of any other being, such as a plant, or a rock, or a starfish, etc.
Additionally, I am a unique person because I have individual attributes — physical and psychological — that no other human can fully replicate down to the molecular level. Other human beings cannot claim my personhood because I am uniquely myself in personhood. Yet all human beings are of the same kind of being.
Meanwhile, the divine being, because it is being and existence and substance in itself, is just that: divinity. After all, the supernatural must be wholly distinct from the natural — otherwise, there would be no such thing as the supernatural. Therefore, personhood within the Trinity can be distinct from human personhood because it pertains to the divine as being.
In other words, just as a plant is within a unique type of being but does not have personhood, and a human is within a unique type of being but also has personhood, God, who is the source of being and the author of life, can therefore have a unique system of personhood infused within its own unique ontology: the divine. Hence the being itself is what makes God “mono” — the one God – yet personhood is still fully plausible. What is more, a personhood relationship that reveals to creation how a true union in love should operate could reasonably be explained as one divine being.
Furthermore, if we as creation accept that a man and woman — two distinct persons yet uniquely human — can become one flesh in the marital union, share one will in their love, and essentially have a shared mind when it comes to faith and morals, then, in the supernatural / divine sense, God can certainly be a union of three persons who are one being and project the perfect love from the union. In turn, humans are to become a mirror of that perfect love.
Christ’s Preexistence and Personhood
If the Trinity has always existed, then so has Christ. We have already established that it is perfectly reasonable for God to be one divine being in three persons. Because God is existence, essence, being, and substance, then God has eternally existed and thus Christ as well.
As with Scripture being the first anchor for Christian belief in the Trinity, the same goes with discovering Christ’s preexistence. In addition to the frequently quoted John 1:1-3, other passages in John’s Gospel speak of Christ as God / as the I AM who has eternally existed: 3:13, 6:62, 8:58, 10:30, and John 17.5. Also, John 6:62 and 17:5 quote Jesus as literally having been with the Father and in heaven “before the world began.”
While John’s Gospel is not one of the synoptics and is often treated by secular scholars or skeptics as depicting a ‘Super Jesus’ who is conversely more divine — the synoptics are severely underestimated in corroborating John’s gospel and declaring Jesus’ divinity and preexistence. Mark 12:35-37, Matthew 11:27, and again in Matthew 23:37, are a few of many examples throughout the synoptics that depict Jesus speaking and acting as God. Even Jesus’ references to Scripture, such as to Daniel 7 when he is standing before the Sanhedrin, are from one who proclaims he is divine. Consequently, he was crucified for the charge of blasphemy — of declaring himself God and acting accordingly in his earthly mission.
Paul’s letters to the Philippians (2:6-7) and to the Colossians (1:15-17), as well as the writer of Hebrews (1:2-3, 8), continue the proclamations in the Gospels about the Jesus’ pre-existence and eternal divinity. Although non-trinitarians attempt to reinterpret Scripture to shoehorn in a low Christology or that Christ is a created being, the New Testament overwhelmingly portrays Jesus as one in divinity with the Father. This is ubiquitously backed up early Christian works, again before the Council of Nicaea, that proclaim Jesus as unequivocally preexistent:
“And further, my brethren, if the Lord [Jesus] endured to suffer for our soul, he being the Lord of all the world, to whom God said at the foundation of the world, “Let us make man after our image, and after our likeness,” (Gen 1:26) understand how it was that he endured to suffer at the hand of men” (Letter of Barnabas 5, c. 75 A.D.).
“The Son of God is older than all his creation, so that he became the Father’s adviser in his creation. Therefore also he is ancient” (Hermas of Rome, The Shepherd of Hermas 3:9:12, c. 80 A.D.). *Like the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas was read and valued in many churches within the Catholic Church. Though not eventually deemed canonical, it was still important in early Church history.
“Jesus Christ . . . who was with the Father before the beginning of time, and in the end was revealed. . . . Jesus Christ . . . who came forth from one Father, and is with and has gone to one. . . . [T]here is one God, who has manifested himself by Jesus Christ his Son, who is his eternal Word, does not proceed from silence, and in all things pleased him that sent him” (St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Magnesians 8, c. 110 A.D.).
“God speaks in the creation of man with the very same design, in the following words: “Let us make man after our image and likeness.” . . . I shall quote again the words narrated by Moses himself, from which we can indisputably learn that [God] conversed with someone distinct from himself and also a rational being. . . . But this offspring who was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures, and the Father communed with him (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 62, c. 155 A.D.).
“I praise you for all things, I bless you, I glorify you, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, your beloved Son, with whom, to you, and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and to all coming ages.” Amen [Martyrdom of Polycarp 14, c, 156 A.D.).
“It was not angels who made us, nor who formed us, neither had angels power to make an image of God, nor anyone else, except the Word of the Lord, nor any power distant from the Father of all things. For God did not stand in need of these [beings] to accomplish what he had determined beforehand should be done, as if he did not possess his own hands. For with him were always present the Word and wisdom, the Son and the Spirit, by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, he made all things, to whom he speaks, saying, “Let us make man after our image and likeness” (Gn 1:26) (Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies 4:20:1, c. 189 A.D.)
“For we do not say, as the heretics suppose, that some part of the substance of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father out of things non-existent, or beyond his own substance, so that there once was a time when he did not exist” (Origen of Alexandria, Fundamental Doctrines 4:28, c. 225 A.D.).
“How, then, can it be asserted that there once was a time when he was not the Son? For that is to say that there was once a time when he was not the Truth, nor the wisdom, nor the life, although in all these he is judged to be the perfect essence of God the Father; for these things cannot be severed from him, or even separated from his essence. And although these qualities are many in understanding, yet in their nature and essence they are one, and in them is the fullness of divinity. This expression we employ—’that there never was a time when he did not exist’—is to be understood with a caveat. For these very words ‘when’ or ‘never’ have a meaning that relates to time, whereas statements regarding Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are to be understood as transcending all time, all ages, and all eternity” (Origen of Alexandria, Fundamental Doctrines 4:28, c. 225 A.D.).
“For it is essential that the divine Word should be united to the God of all, and that the Holy Spirit should abide and dwell in God; and thus that the divine Trinity should be gathered into one, as if into a certain head—that is, the omnipotent God of all. . . . It is not a trifling, but a very great impiety, to say that the Lord was in any way made with hands. For if the Son was made, there was a time when he was not; but he always was, if, as he himself declares, he is in the Father. . . . If the Son was made, there was a time when these were not in existence; and thus there was a time when God was without these things, which is utterly absurd” (Pope St. Dionysius Against the Sabellians 1, c. 262 A.D.).
“The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God. Now the world was made from nothing; therefore it is not God. For Christ is the God above all, and he has arranged to wash away sin from human beings, rendering the old man regenerate” (St. Hippolytus of Rom Refutation of All Heresies 10:29-30, c. 227 A.D.).
“But we do not regard God the Creator of all, the Son of God, as a creature, or thing made, or as made out of nothing, for He is truly existent from Him who exists, alone existing from Him who alone exists, in as much as the like glory and power was eternally and conjointly begotten of the Father. For ‘He that has seen’ the Son ‘has seen the Father (John 14:9). All things to it were made through the Son; but He Himself is not a creature, as Paul says of the Lord: ‘In Him were all things created, and He is before all’ (Colossians 1:16). Now He says not, ‘was created’ before all things, but ‘is’ before all things. To be created, namely, is applicable to all things, but ‘is before all’ applies to the Son only. (Athanasius Expositio Fidei. Par. 2)
“He is then by nature an Offspring, perfect from the Perfect, begotten before all the hills (Proverbs 8:25), that is before every rational and intelligent essence, as Paul also in another place calls Him ‘first-born of all creation’ (Colossians 1:15). But by calling Him First-born, He shows that He is not a Creature, but Offspring of the Father. For it would be inconsistent with His deity for Him to be called a creature. For all things were created by the Father through the Son, but the Son alone was eternally begotten from the Father, whence God the Word is ‘first-born of all creation,’ unchangeable from unchangeable” (Athanasius, Expositio Fidei par. 3).
“Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us. Since, if when He became man, only then He was called Son and God, but before He became man, God called the ancient people sons, and made Moses a god of Pharaoh (and Scripture says of many, ‘God stands in the congregation of Gods ‘), it is plain that He is called Son and God later than they. How then are all things through Him, and He before all? Or how is He ‘first-born of the whole creation ,’ if He has others before Him who are called sons and gods? And how is it that those first partakers do not partake of the Word? This opinion is not true; it is a device of our present Judaizers. For how in that case can any at all know God as their Father? For adoption there could not be apart from the real Son, who says, ‘No one knows the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him Matthew 11:27.’ And how can there be deifying apart from the Word and before Him? Yet, says He to their brethren the Jews, ‘If He called them gods, unto whom the Word of God came John 10:35.’ And if all that are called sons and gods, whether in earth or in heaven, were adopted and deified through the Word, and the Son Himself is the Word, it is plain that through Him are they all, and He Himself before all, or rather He Himself only is very Son , and He alone is very God from the very God, not receiving these prerogatives as a reward for His virtue, nor being another beside them, but being all these by nature and according to essence. For He is Offspring of the Father’s essence, so that one cannot doubt that after the resemblance of the unalterable Father, the Word also is unalterable.” (Athanasius, First Discourse Against the Arians, par. 39, c. 356 A.D.).
There are several takeaways from the aforementioned passages:
1.) Similar to the Letter of Barnabas, Justin, in his letter to Trypho, confirms the allusions to the Trinity in the creation story. Although non-Christians who dabble in Church history try to use Justin against Christian theology, claiming that Justin viewed Jesus as having a lesser divinity than the Father, Justin unmistakably believes that Jesus is the Logos (Justin was a major proponent of using Greek philosophy to point it to Christian theology). In effect, Jesus then is pre-existent with the Father, which means Jesus is once again one in being, one in substance with the Father.
Which also means Justin sees Jesus as fully divine and not according to the revisionist view of Jesus as a lesser divinity. Further, if the very definition of God is divinity itself, then it is impossible for something to be divine and also outrank itself as divinity. The everlasting Jesus is just that: everlasting. He has always been and always will be one in divinity with the Father.
2.) Jesus as Word (Logos) cannot be over emphasized. He is the Word with God and who is God (John 1:1).
Pope St. Dionysus, for example, is one of several early Church figures who acknowledge the union between the Word and the Divine. Christ is the Word; therefore, Christ is Divine. Christ IS God. In other words, being of something is being something. Thus, the Son of God is divine because he is eternally generated from the Father; he is consubstantial, the same being as the Father.
Hippolytus is another example of Christian writers connecting the Logos to God. It is certainly not a later invention at the Council of Nicaea. As demonstrated throughout my commentary, many Fathers and ecclesiastical writers use Greek terms and philosophy as a common thread for dialogue about the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
3.) Let us reflect on Jesus referring to himself as The Way, the Truth, and the Life in John 14:6. That is pre-existence talk — not something from a created being. Thus, as Origen explains, correlating the word “when” to Christ’s existence refers to time. God is outside of time, and that includes Christ within the triune God.
The problem with how many non-trinitarians and other non-Christians approach the Trinity is they conflate time with what is timeless, what is material with what transcends the material.
Hence why non-trinitarians should stop implicitly or directly comparing the generative relationship between the Father and the Son with material being and within space and time.
Again, God is outside space and time, and therefore the relationship with the Son and the Spirit is likewise outside space, time, and the material. In short, what is generative from God is not the same as what God creates. God’s generative relationship with the Son has always existed because God is existence. Creation is a product of God willing it into existence as something material and contained within time.
4.) Looking at Athanasius’ thorough examination of Christ’s preexistence reveals a crisis of interpretation for non-trinitarians: If Christ is purely a product of creation, then Christ too needs a savior. Namely, if creation has fallen, if it carries the wound of original sin, or if Romans 3:23 is correct that “all fall short of the glory of God” and therefore need salvation through God’s grace, then Christ as creation also needs to be saved by God’s grace.
This means God would either have to send a divine representative who was not born within creation (hence the Trinity and the incarnation), or would have to deem another created being to be the savior for Christ and the rest of humankind. However, the created being would also be subject to Romans 3:23, and the thought experiment becomes an infinite number of successive, appointed created beings who bring salvation to other created beings.
Christ as Son of God means Christ is the Son in essence. Muslims, for example, are often quick to point out that many people are referred to in Scripture as a “son of god.” In fact, even angels are referred to as such. However, none of the creatures mentioned were prophesized as the divine becoming man, as one who would be the appointed Messiah — who is the Logos. Jesus, who is already identified as the eternal Logos, is the Son of God in essence; he is the eternally generated Son who became incarnate: not by procreative means, but, by the power of the Holy Spirit, conceived in Mary’s womb and became both human nature and divine nature in one person (prosopon).
If Muslims and other non-trinitarians can accept Jesus’ supernatural conception, then it is certainly reasonable to accept that Christ preexisted creation and entered into it to become God incarnate. As a matter of fact, incarnation is crucial to understanding Christ and the power of God: If God cannot become incarnate, then God has limits. If God has limits, then God is no longer the very definition of God.
Which leads to the topic of Christ as God incarnate.
Christ as Incarnation
In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is referred to as God, he is the Word made flesh, and he acts and speaks with the authority of God: Matt 9:1-8, Mark 4:35-41; Matt 5:21-48; John 8:58; John 10:30; Mark 6:50; Matt 24:30 / Matt 26:24; John 1:1, 14; John 20:28; Col 2:9; Titus 2:13; Hebrews 1:8; 2 Pet 1:1.
As such, early believers also worshipped Christ, and they proclaimed that Christ should be worshipped: Matt 2:11; Matt 14:33; John 9:35-38; Matt 28:8-9, 17; Luke 24:50-52; Phil 2:9-11; Rev 5:13-1. For Jews in Jesus’ time, particularly because they had been eagerly awaiting their Messiah to put an end to the waves of empires that ruled over the them for centuries, they were acutely focused on how Jesus’ words and actions.
Whether followers or detractors, all Jews who had spent time with Jesus were constantly taken aback by his speaking and acting on behalf of God. In one example, the Pharisees rebuke Jesus by saying “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who but God alone can forgive sins?” (Luke 5:21). And as already mentioned earlier, the primary reason for Jesus’ execution was that he proclaimed to be divine in relationship to the God the Father.
However, once again, non-trinitarians reinterpret Scripture passages about Jesus’ divinity and sonship, claiming that, on the minimum end of the spectrum, Jesus was nothing more than a wise teacher, or possibly a messenger of God, during his earthly ministry; and on the maximum end, Jesus was a created being who, after his death, earned a semi-divine or subordinate role next to the Father in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus’ miraculous conception, then, becomes more of a magic trick on God’s part and certainly not as a divine incarnation in Mary’s womb.
But that is not how the Church Fathers and ecclesiastical writers articulate the incarnation. They all see Christ as divine: before creation, when Jesus was conceived and born, during his ministry, still through his death and resurrection, and finally forever exalted as the divine king who sits at the right hand of the Father:
“For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost. He was born and baptized, that by His passion He might purify the water” (Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians 1, para 18, c. 107 A.D.)
“Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who also was born for this purpose, and was crucified under Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judæa, in the times of Tiberius Cæsar; and that we reasonably worship Him, having learned that He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove. For they proclaim our madness to consist in this, that we give to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all; for they do not discern the mystery that is herein, to which, as we make it plain to you, we pray you to give heed” (St. Justin Martyr, First Apology, ch. 13, c. 151 A.D.).
“It is not necessary in dealing with persons of intelligence to reason that the actions of Christ after his baptism are proof that his soul and his body, his human nature, were like ours, real and not phantasmal. The activities of Christ after his baptism, and especially his miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the deity hidden in his flesh. Being God and also perfect man, he gave positive proofs of his two natures: of his deity, by the miracles during the three years following after his baptism, and of his humanity, in the thirty years that came before his baptism, during which, by reason of his condition according to the flesh, he concealed the signs of his deity, although he was the true God existing before the ages” [Melito of Sardis, fragment in St. Anastasius of Sinai’s The Guide 13, c. 170 A.D.).
“The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, confess” [Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 1:10:1, c. 189 A.D.).
“Since the Word was from the beginning, he was and is the divine source of all things; but because he has now assumed the name Christ, consecrated of old, and worthy of power, he has been called by me the New Song. This Word, then, the Christ, the cause of our being at first (for he was in God) and of our well-being, this very Word has now appeared as man, he alone being both God and man—the author of all blessings to us [Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen 1, c. 195 A.D.).
We, as we always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who indeed leads men into all truth), believe that there is only one God, but under the following dispensation, or oikonomia, as it is called, that this one and only God has a Son, his Word, who proceeded from himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. We believe he was sent by the Father into the Virgin, and was born of her—being both man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and was called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe he suffered, died, and was buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after he was raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come to judge the living and the dead; and that this one God also sent from heaven, according to his own promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. This rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel, even before any of the older heretics” (Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2, c. 218 A.D.).
“We must therefore believe, according to the rule prescribed, in the Lord, the one true God, and consequently in him whom he has sent, Jesus Christ, who would not have linked himself to the Father if he had not wished to be understood to be God also: for he would have separated himself from him if he did not wish to be understood to be God” (Novatian of Rome, The Trinity 16, c. 235 A.D.).
“For Scripture announces Christ as God, as it announces God himself as man. It has described Jesus Christ as man, as it has described Christ the Lord as God. It does not set him forth as the Son of God only, but also the Son of man; nor only as the Son of man, but it has been accustomed to speak of him as the Son of God. Being of both, he is both, lest if he should be only one, he could not be the other. For as nature has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is of man, so nature prescribes that he must be believed to be God who is of God; but if he should not also be God when he is of God, then he should not be man although he is of man. And thus both doctrines would be endangered in one or the other way, by one being convicted to have lost belief in the other. Let them, therefore—who read that Jesus Christ the Son of man is man—read also that this same Jesus is also called God and the Son of God” (Novation of Rome, The Trinity 11)
“That admirable and divine unity must not be separated into three divinities, nor must the dignity and eminent greatness of the Lord be diminished by having the name of creation applied to it, but we must believe in God the Father omnipotent, and in Christ Jesus his Son, and in the Holy Spirit. Moreover, that the Word is united to the God of all, because he says, ‘I and the Father are one’ and ‘I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.’ Thus the doctrine of the divine Trinity will be maintained in its integrity” (Pope St. Dionysius, Against the Sabellians 1, 262 A.D.).
“Is that Christ of yours a god, then?,” some raving, wrathful, and excited man will say. ‘A God,’ we will reply, ‘and the God of the inner powers’ (Arnobius of Sicca, Against the Heathen 1:42, c. 305 A.D.).
“Seeing, then, that Christ is God, He is, by consequence, good and almighty and eternal and perfect and true; for these attributes belong to the essential nature of the Godhead. Let our adversaries, therefore, deny the Divine Nature in Christ — otherwise they cannot refuse to God what is proper to the Divine Nature.” (Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, ch 2.15, c. 379 A.D.).
“Further, that none may fall into error, let a man attend to those signs vouchsafed us by holy Scripture, whereby we may know the Son. He is called the Word, the Son, the Power of God, the Wisdom of God. The Word, because He is without blemish; the Power, because He is perfect; the Son, because He is begotten of the Father; the Wisdom, because He is one with the Father, one in eternity, one in Divinity. Not that the Father is one Person with the Son; between Father and Son is the plain distinction that comes of generation; so that Christ is God of God, Everlasting of Everlasting, Fulness of Fulness. (St. Ambrose, Exposition of the Christian Faith, ch 2.16).
Repeatedly, the early Christian writers affirm the interconnected characteristics about Jesus Christ:
1.) He is the Word made flesh. If he is so, he once again already existed and became incarnate to have both a human and a divine nature. In effect, Jesus is the joining of the ‘to be’ to a human nature. That is, the hypostatic union: the fully divine nature joined to fully human nature.
2.) Given that Christ is one in being within the Trinity, and therefore has always existed, the early Christian writers directly refer to him as God and to be worshipped.
3.) The early Christians unanimously see no conflict in God becoming incarnate while being a separate ‘person’ in the Godhead. For them, it makes complete sense that for the expected savior to be a man who claims and demonstrates the power of God, he must have the divine within him. Not a reflection of the divine, but the divinity itself that allows him to speak and act as God whenever he so wishes.
Or if Jesus is not God incarnate, then every miracle he performs, every single event in which his followers witness a divine experience — examples: Jesus’ baptism, the transfiguration, healing the sick, casting out demons, walking on water, raising individuals from the dead, raising himself from the dead — would have to be creatively or speculatively explained away as not at all divine or at least not supernatural. Meanwhile, the Jews frequently make the point in the Gospels that only God can do what Jesus is blatantly doing as well.
It is then no surprise that Christian communities in the first and subsequent centuries keep reinforcing the essential and consistent definitions of Christ: incarnate, the Word, the Son of God (in the eternally begotten sense), the Son of Man (in the Daniel 7 / divine sense), and God as in the third person in the Holy Trinity. As a matter of fact, one can trace a straight line from Scripture through the fourth century Christian writers about Christ’s divinity — and not at all a subordinate divinity: The apostles Peter and Thomas refer to Christ as God, Melito of Sardis does the same in 170 AD, Novation of Rome does so as well in 235 AD, and so does Ambrose in 379 AD.
Still, some non-trinitarians are so thoroughly well-versed in Scripture, and have delved into early Church writings, that it can seem like they can easily win their position by effortlessly reciting multiple passages, while also proposing radically revamped interpretations of say, Daniel, Isaiah, Psalms, Hebrews, Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Justin Martyr’s view of the Logos, documents from the Council of Nicaea, and the list goes on. As such, the end result is that non-trinitarians have supposedly proven that Christians have a twisted understanding of divinity, and that only the Father is the true God.
If that is truly the case, then the numerous Scripture passages and quotes from early Christian writers provided above are not only nonsensical if Christ, the promised Messiah, is not divine, but that Christians have been idiotically wrong for 2000 years. This includes all the 16th century Reformation movements that upheld Jesus as God, and the now hundreds or more splinter movements that continue to worship Jesus as God.
Not that a position or belief wins simply by being the most popular one — but the “Christian theology has always been wrong” completely burns down to the ground all the many centuries of works from the hundreds of Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox scholars — who all line up, and can substantiate in painstaking detail, that all of the Scriptural and early Christian writing references pointing to Jesus as the Messiah also point to his divinity.
It is seriously the theological version of a round earth versus flat earth debate. Either everything we have ever known about the Earth’s roundish shape has all been one of the most colossally cosmic lies in all of existence, or it is overwhelmingly true. The same goes with trinitarian theology: Either everything that has been consistently documented for 2000 years now has nothing to do with a triune God, or the theology has been overwhelmingly the same all this time.
Now, a skeptic may leap to calling that analogy a false equivalency. However, the comparison is meant to show that if a school of thought or certain belief has had a massive amount of corroboration across much of recorded history, then if a revisionist individual comes along and proclaims that, say, “nobody who has ever truly stated that earth is round or has actually believed it,” it’s not that the originally understood claim might not be true – it is that the revisionist has created an entirely alternate reality. Therefore, who is right: the thousands of people who specifically wrote that the “Earth is round,” or the people who say that is not what the thousands of people said or meant.
The same goes with Christian theology: We have record after record of Christians, throughout history, referring to Jesus as God and within a Trinity: one divinity consisting of three persons. Thus, for a non-trinitarian to claim that Christian theology has never entailed trinitarian theology is thoroughly disingenuous and outrageously wrong. Even if there are millions of non-trinitarians, it does not make their position any less disingenuous.
The Holy Spirit’s Role in the Trinity Vs. Hyper Focusing on Debunking Christ as God
A final problem is that non-trinitarians often focus so much on trying to debunk that Jesus is God, they appear to overlook that the Holy Spirit is also identified as a person within the Trinity. In other words, let’s say Jesus is not God and was created at creation, or that his divinity is subordinate to God’s. Does that mean the Holy Spirit and the Father are a two-in-one Godhead and pre-existent?
Moreover, consider that the Holy Spirit did not become incarnate, yet has all the power of God. In Scripture, the Holy Spirit is referred to as equal to God, has been ‘sent’ down to humankind, and who has all the attributes of personhood (Matt 3:16; John 14:16, 26; John 15:26; Acts 10:44; Acts 13: 2; Acts 15:28; 1 Cor 12:11).
Therefore, if God and the Holy Spirit are distinct from each other, yet are the same in divinity, non-trinitarians still have the problem of squaring the two. Or put more simply: if it is plausible to have two distinct persons who share in one being, then it is certainly possible for three.
Conclusion
Now, while an abundance of Scripture and early Church writings about the Trinity have revealed, without ambiguity, that the Trinity has been at the heart of Christianity since the time of Jesus, some individuals, unfortunately, will remain skeptics or continue to push a strawman alternative to what Christian history has proclaimed to believe. After all, we live in a disordered world, a world in which the ego relentlessly pursues the soul until it is captured into a deceptively unending supply of instant gratification, mob mentality entertainment, celebrated tribal warfare, and the desire to win debates at all cost.
Nonetheless, all of the quotes shared in this article are actually indisputably on the side of Christians and trinitarian theology overall. What we know about God, what God has revealed to humankind, has been meticulously documented for ages; and there is simply no period of time when Christians claimed any belief other than in the Trinity. It is somewhat similar to, say, the Baptists who claim that there was a centuries-long, underground Christian movement in parallel with the Catholic Church; yet there is absolutely no documented proof — not even from an archaeological standpoint — that such a movement ever existed.
The same goes with all of the supposed, non-trinitarian based claims that real Christians have never believed in the triune God. Granted, several splinter movements since the Protestant Reformation have created alternative versions of Christian theology and gained a substantial number of followers — but there is certainly no record of these same beliefs within Christianity for at least the first1600 years or so of its history.
Regardless, another problem with the onslaught of polemics from non-trinitarians is that the God will never be entirely figured out within the human experience. There is a reason why God is a mystery, and it is not a rhetorical excuse to get out of having an in-depth, intellectual conversation about God and the knowledge we can establish. The reason is that if God is in fact omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, timeless, and spaceless — then God is always beyond the material means to gain full knowledge of the divine. And that should not trouble the human mind.
Rather, after we have gathered enough contiguous details from Scripture and Christian writings to gain a foundational understanding of the Trinity, the next step is to declare faith in God’s revelation, become a new creation in Christ through baptism, and enter into a sacramental relationship and life that it supposed to transform the believer over time into a fully sanctified soul. In short — a saint.
On the path to sainthood, Christians can grow in their connection to the mystery that is God, while humbly recognizing that to have full knowledge of God — to be in the perfect state of divine contemplation — is to be fully beatified: to be the perfect representation of eternal love and goodness. Monastics such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and Thomas Merton all explain in numerous works of the spiritual journey that does not stop at what we can know about God.
What has been revealed to us is the light we can see — but it does not include the light we cannot see. Believers eventually journey towards the fullness of God’s light by plunging deep into the darkness of spiritual reckoning, purgation, and humbly accepting that it may take until death for the mystery to be more fully revealed. It does not mean that believers will not grow deeper in their relationship with God along the way — but it does mean that reaching the absolute essence of God is not something to be quantified, nor hammered out in a two-hour online debate, nor after reading every book and article in the world on the subject.
It is impossible for a material being to build a material method to explain perfectly the immaterial. The idea will always be self-refuting, and it takes true humility to accept that none of us knows everything. Period.
Still, while believers grow closer to God and gain more refined knowledge about what can be known about the Trinity, what if Christians and non-trinitarians repurposed all of the tiresome debates about the Trinity to a discussion about what the Trinity provides to humankind. Namely, Christianity is the only faith in which God specifically offers a covenantal, family based, love based relationship with humankind: God wants to be our spiritual father and live together with humankind for eternity as a family entirely rooted in love.
But what is the first and perfect example of love in action so that we know how to mirror the love that God wants to have with us? It is the eternal love between the Father and the Son, and spirated through the Holy Spirit. Thus, just as God is being, existence, essence, substance, love and goodness, the Trinity, then, is the forever love in action and which God wants us to have as well. Which other theology can come close to the perfect love that exists as one being yet in three persons who share an eternal love in spiritual union?
If Jesus is merely a created being, he could certainly have been created to love God. However, he would not be the exact union of love with God. The same goes with Jesus being a subordinate divinity, an appointed Messenger within humankind, or a promoted creature to deity like responsibilities: it would not show exactly what a perfect love or union with the divine would look like. Rather, it would be a limited or rank ordered love between the Father and Son and therefore would not be the perfect example of a fully united love.
In other words, if believers are to know what it means to join together in union here on earth, then we first need a transcendent example of what it means to be in a full union of love together. Just as Christ is a model for how we are to treat one another — and he bases this model on his union with the Father — then so is the case with the most important element of existence: love.
Therefore, the Trinity is not only something to describe and fundamentally know — it is the whole reason why we have love and thus why Christianity exists.