Answerer

Hi everyone, a dumb question I believe but I will like to know the actual date where Trinity was 'invented' as a major Christian doctrine. Did it first appear as a result of the votes at the Nicene Creed? Or was Paul the one who came out with the concept? Or otherwise?



Any help will be appreciated.

funinspace

I believe the first reference to the usage of "trinity" as an explaination of the NT books on God-Jesus-Holy Spirit is Athenagoras around 177AD. I don't know what extant documents that cite it. However, Theophilus (180AD) also writes a defense of this doctrine in Ad Autolycum 2.15 I believe.

DK

Intelligitimate

The doctrine seems to have arose out of a rejection of adoptionism (human Jesus) and docetism (completely divine Jesus who wasn't really human).

Answerer

Thanks for your help, guys. But frankly, I expect more replies......

So, are you trying to say in Trinity, Jesus is 50% human and 50% God?

breathilizer

I find it funny that they are so set on the Trinity... What if a new form of God emerges? Will they begin to worship all 4? Would it have existed as 4 the entire time, but we were just oblivious to it?

dantonac

The doctrine of the trinity doesn't make sense because it is impossible. The reason the doctrine of the trinity cannot be refuted is because one can simply say "We are talking about the nature of the godhead and it is beyond human comprehension."

I believe the official answer would be Jesus was 100% human and 100% god.

Like I said, it is impossible, but see the excuse above.

rlogan

hello Anwerer.

You need to be looking towards the Council of Constantinople in 381 C.E.

Athanasius was a key player prior to that. He attended the first council in 325 but died before the second.

I guess that's the "finishing off" of the trinity idea.

You can see in the early writings that the Church fathers struggled with certain aspects of Christ being "God" - a "beam" of the sun, sort of. The Logos idea.

I think tertullian used the word "Trinity", but not in the same sense as ultimately adopted. "All in one" but not all is God.

Eusebius and the Arians fought the whole "jesus is god" thing for years. Even after 381 it wasn't universal.


So you have quite a long development before it became dogma enough to kill anyone over.

Intelligitimate

No. As Dantonac said, the Trinity is Jesus is 100% human and 100% divine. It is also complete nonsense.

Sheshbazzar

I do not consider it to be any "new" form of god, or any "new" doctrine,
but based on the evidence of Scripture, it has been my conviction for years that The Elohim of the Scriptures was always, and yet is, to be understood as a Quadra-Unity. This is interrelated with the Scriptural empathsis on the square,rectilinear,and cubic forms, as opposed to the triangular/pyramidal forms, and the circular/globular forms that are intregal with various 'goyim' geometric conceptions of the eternal, even to the extent that these other geometric forms were anathema to the scriptural writers.
In concept, the four equilateral and square sides join to form a pefect cube, having six perfect and equal planes, existing in four dimensions, in which all that may be measured or quantified, is measured and quantified, from that the least, to that the greatest, even all things that exist, And in Whom we also live, and move, and have our being.
A measuring line to fathom what may be fathomed, to determine the boundries,and a plummet to find the upright, a measuring reed of six cubits is in my hand, all my ways are equal.
I set forth a paradigm, I call out to the upright and foursquare among men,
Behold, my banner is a Name, and my Name is a number,the same is time and is judgment. My scroll flies, and in all the earth, its length is twice its breadth,
and its breadth is half its length.
The Day is coming, there shall yet be One Banner, honored by all men.
Respectfully, Sheshbazzar

mrmoderate

This is a point I bring up often. While I absolutely believe there is a plurality to God as is pointed out in several Hebrew and New Testament passages I don't neccesarily agree on the three in one as being the absolute number of entities that God can be at any one time.