Proof of the Trinity

Athanasius377 said:

I think it's helpful to realize that we stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before us while we wrestle with how to explain something like the Holy Trinity. Below is the Anthanasian Creed from the Fifth century and is still receited by Rome, Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed churches to this very day and for good reason.

Also, catholic simply means "universal" and is used over and against gnostic sects that claimed to be christian.


Athanasian Creed
(early fifth century)

1. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith: AthC 1
2. Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. AthC 2
3. And the Catholic Faith is this: That we worship One God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; AthC 3
4. Neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing the Substance. AthC 4
5. For there is one Person of the Father: another of the Son: and another of the Holy Spirit. AthC 5
6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one: the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. AthC 6
7. Such as the Father is: such is the Son: and such is the Holy Spirit. AthC 7
8. The Father uncreated: the Son uncreated: and the Holy Spirit uncreated. AthC 8
9. The Father incomprehensible: the Son incomprehensible: and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. AthC 9
10. The Father eternal: the Son eternal: and the Holy Spirit eternal. AthC 10
11. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal. AthC 11
12. As also not three uncreated, nor three incomprehensibles, but one uncreated: and one incomprehensible. AthC 12
13. So, likewise, the Father is Almighty: the Son Almighty: and the Holy Spirit Almighty. AthC 13
14. And yet they are not three Almighties but one Almighty. AthC 14
15. So the Father is God: the Son is God: and the Holy Spirit is God. AthC 15
16. And yet they are not three Gods but one God. AthC 16
17. So likewise the Father is Lord: the Son Lord: and the Holy Spirit Lord. AthC 17
18. And yet not three Lords: but one Lord. AthC 18
19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity: to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord: AthC 19
20. So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say: There be three Gods, or three Lords. AthC 20
21. The Father is made of none: neither created nor begotten. AthC 21
22. The Son is of the Father alone: not made, nor created: but begotten. AthC 22
23. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten: but proceeding. AthC 23
24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers: one Son, not three Sons: one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. AthC 24
25. And in this Trinity none is before or after another: none is greater or less than another. AthC 25
26. But the whole three Persons are coeternal, and coequal. AthC 26
27. So that in all things, as aforesaid: the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped. AthC 27
28. He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity. AthC 28
29. Furthermore it is necessary to eternal salvation: that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. AthC 29
30. For the right faith is, that we believe and confess: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; AthC 30
31. God, of the substance of the Father: begotten before the worlds: and man, of the substance of His Mother, born in the world. AthC 31
32. Perfect God: and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. AthC 32
33. Equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead: and inferior to the Father as touching His Manhood. AthC 33
34. Who although He be God and Man; yet He is not two, but one Christ. AthC 34
35. One; not by conversion of the GodHead into flesh: but by taking of the Manhood into God. AthC 35
36. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance: but by unity of Person. AthC 36
37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man: so God and Man is one Christ; AthC 37
38. Who suffered for our salvation: descended into hell: rose again the third day from the dead. AthC 38
39. He ascended into heaven, he sitteth at the right hand of the Father God Almighty. AthC 39
40. From whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. AthC 40
41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies; AthC 41
42. And shall give account for their own works. AthC 42
43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting: and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. AthC 43
44. This is the Catholic Faith: which except a man believed faithfully, he cannot be saved.

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I stopped reading at point #1. It is contrary to Scripture. There is nothing in the Bible that says this; there was no Catholic church when the Bible was written. Matthew 11:28, "“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I don't see any requirement that you must be a Catholic here or anywhere else in God's word.

Hello @pescador, "catholic", in this case, means "universal", so it is ~not~ a reference to the Roman Catholic Church in our creeds (for instance).

Here's a short article from a Protestant website with a little more detail:

--David

pescador said:

I stopped reading at point #1. It is contrary to Scripture. There is nothing in the Bible that says this; there was no Catholic church when the Bible was written. Matthew 11:28, "“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I don't see any requirement that you must be a Catholic here or anywhere else in God's word.

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That’s simply untrue; the New Testament is among other things a history of the formation of the Catholic Church (note that I did not say Roman Catholic) from the Annunciation and Nativity of our Lord, through His Baptism, His ministry, his Transfiguration, His Entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, His Passion, His Resurrection, His Ascension, and the Acts of His Apostles in preaching the Gospel and expanding the Catholic Church to include Gentiles as well as Jews, and their most important theological epistles to the faithful and their successors (for example, the letters of Paul to Timothy) and it concludea with Revelations, which contains messages from our Lord, including stern rebukes of the Nicolaitan Gnostic heretics, and then an Apocalypse describing what will happen to the Church in the days leading up to the dread day of Judgement and the dawn of the World to Come.

But don’t take my word for it - look at the CF.com Statement of Faith, which is the Nicene Creed as revised at the Council of Constantinople in 381 annotated with supporting scriptural verses and explanatory statements. So first, here are the professions of faith in the Catholic Church from the Nicene Creed:

I believe [...]
In one, (Matthew 16: 18)
holy, (1 Peter 2:5,9)
catholic*, (Mark 16:15)
and apostolic Church. (Acts 2:42; Ephesians 2:19-22)

And, so there is no confusion, the meaning of Catholic is explained here:.

Notes
* The word "catholic" (literally, "complete," "universal," or "according to the whole") refers to the universal church of the Lord Jesus Christ and not necessarily or exclusively to any particular visible denomination, institution, or doctrine.

Now, that being said, that a Roman Church existed as part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church during the writing of the New Testament would be accepted by even the most anti-ecumenical Orthodox and traditional Protestants, such as traditionalist Lutherans, covenating Reformed Presbyterians and other Calvinists, conservative Congregationalists, and Southern Baptists who reject the Landmark Baptist “trail of blood” ecclesiology, and perhaps even some Landmark Baptists, people who do not believe the Roman Catholic Church of today is actually Catholic (or in the case of Greek Old Calendarist Orthodox, and some other Greek Orthodox scholars such as the controversial John C. Romanides, Roman; they regard the Eastern Orthodox Christians of the Eastern Roman Empire to be the true Romans since they self identify in Greek as Romiioi and in Arabic as Rum, in both cases meaning Roman, and the Romanians, the sole Eastern Orthodox speakers of a Latinate language, are particularly proud of their Roman-Dacian heritage).

As chronological proof of a Roman church as part of the larger Catholic, Apostolic church, we have the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans, and other epistles he wrote while under house arrest, supported by members of Caesar’s retinue (which Caesar is not specified, but we do know that Nero blamed the Christians for a devastating fire widely believed to have been his fault, and in the aftermath, Paul, a Roman citizen, was beheaded outside the walls, while Peter and other non-citizens were executed more brutally, Peter being crucified upside down on the Vatican Hill, and other Christians being lit ablaze and used as human torches during dinner parties. The persecution of Christians grew worse and worse, with Ignatius of Antioch being fed to lions around 93 AD, the abated somewhat under Trajan, Hadrian and Marcus Aurellius, before once more becoming horrific under Commodus and reaching a nadir in the Great Martyrdom under Diocletian (ironically, an event that was contemporaneous with the conversion of Edessa and Armenia to Christianity, and which was followed by Constantine embracing Christianity and ending the persecution)**.

Now, different churches interpret Catholic differently. The Roman Catholics tend to consider their church to be uniquely Catholic; many Eastern Orthodox feel only the Eastern Orthodox church is Catholic. This is based on the idea, exegeted from 1 Corinthians 10-11, that since the Church is one body, it must constitute a single communion or corporeal entity. Others, including many Oriental Orthodox, High Church Anglicans, Assyrians of the Church of the East and Ancient Church of the East, some Old Catholics, members predominantly of churches with bishops, tend to believe in a “branch ecclesiology” wherein the regrettable schisms of the fifth, eleventh and sixteenth century resulted in the Catholic Church consisting of independent branches, which should seek reunion. Some Congregationalists and Baptists subscribe to a local ecclesiology in which each right-believing local church is argued to posess in and of itself the fullness of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. Finally, perhaps the most popular ecclesiology among Protestants is called the Invisible Church Ecclesiology. The premise is that those churches where the Gospel is proclaimed are spiritually united into One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which exists as an eschatological and soteriological reality, comprised of every Christian, living and deceased.

Many churches not part of the Roman Catholic Church identify as Catholic, among them, many of the Orthodox churches, the Church of the East (the full title of whicj is the Assyrian Catholic Church of the East), the Old Catholics which broke away from the Roman Catholic church after the first Vatican council in the 1860s over the issue of Papal Infallibility, and in the US, the traditional high church Anglican Catholic Church. Still others describe themselves as Catholic, for example, many Lutherans like to refer to their church as “Evangelical Catholic,” and some of the more liturgical Calvinists like to style their church as “Reformed Catholic.” The presiding bishops of the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church (also known as the Indian Orthodox Church, which was founded by the Apostle Thomas around 50 AD, shortly before he was martyred by a Hindu prince), use the title “Catholicos” instead of the more common “Patriarch.”

** The persecuted Coptic Christians of Egypt date their calendar epoch from the Diocletian persecution, so on the Coptic Calendar, today is Tuesday the 11th of Pashons, in the Year of Martyrs 1736 (as @dzheremi can confirm) Martyrs were and are extremely important in Christianity, because our Lord in the Beatitudes and elsewhere promises to save those who die for their faith in Him.

createdtoworship said:

early church fathers such as turtullian use the term "three in one" or "triad"

which later became "trinity" which is a latin term.

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I hear tertullian coined the word Trinity.

Daniel Marsh said:

I hear tertullian coined the word Trinity.

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This is true, and he coined it before he became a Montanist.

Tertullian, the earliest Latin Christian writer, is the first to use the Latin word trinitas. However, Theophilus of Antioch is the first to use the word "Trinity", or more specifically τριάς (trias).

"In like manner also the three days [of creation] which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom." - Theophilus of Antioch, to Autolycus, Book II, ch. 15

-CryptoLutheran

Matthew 28:19 does it for me.

We need to be honest enough to realize that the Trinity as it developed is not in the NT. What is in the NT are various statements that led later theologians to develop the Trinity.

The NT largely distinguishes between Jesus and God. Jesus talks about God as someone else. Paul consistently differentiates between God and Christ.

However in passages where the authors reflect on the significance of Christ, they look to the Jewish tradition of speaking of "intermediates" to refer to God's way of being present with his people. Sometimes this was attributes of God, e.g. his Wisdom or Word, described as being distinct. E.g. lady wisdom in Prov or the Logos of John 1. Sometimes it was men such as Moses elevated to God's throne. The NT uses this type of terminology to refer to Christ. Also in a few places such as Col 1, it speaks of him as being present in creation. So in these various ways Jesus is identified as God's way of being present with us, distinguished from God but not entirely separate.

As Christianity was interpreted in the context of Greek understanding, the Trinity was developed, over a couple of centuries, as the most accurate translation of these Biblical ideas into the Greek mode of thought. As the NT both distinguishes Jesus from God and identifies him as God's presence, this was represented as Christ having two natures, human and divine. As God's presence was described in the NT in terms of intermediates that were spoken of as distinguished from God but ultimately were part of God's activity, the divinity that was present through Christ was understood as being distinguished from the Father but still God.

Attempts at finding hypostases and natures in the NT are going to fail. Collections of out-of-context NT texts trying to "prove" the Trinity are helpful only to people who already believe. But if you try to understand what the NT authors were trying to say, and how the later theologians tried to make this intelligible in their own terms, I think you can see why the Trinity developed. It's also useful to look at the range of alternatives to the Trinity that failed, and understand why the Trinity was more successful.

hedrick said:

We need to be honest enough to realize that the Trinity as it developed is not in the NT. What is in the NT are various statements that led later theologians to develop the Trinity.

The NT largely distinguishes between Jesus and God. Jesus talks about God as someone else. Paul consistently differentiates between God and Christ.

However in passages where the authors reflect on the significance of Christ, they look to the Jewish tradition of speaking of "intermediates" to refer to God's way of being present with his people. Sometimes this was attributes of God, e.g. his Wisdom or Word, described as being distinct. E.g. lady wisdom in Prov or the Logos of John 1. Sometimes it was men such as Moses elevated to God's throne. The NT uses this type of terminology to refer to Christ. Also in a few places such as Col 1, it speaks of him as being present in creation. So in these various ways Jesus is identified as God's way of being present with us, distinguished from God but not entirely separate.

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If a person looks carefully throughout Genesis and the Gospels (as I did when I was questioning the Scriptural basis for the Trinity, not counting Sacred Tradition or the ECFs or the Church Councils) one can hardly NOT see specific allusions to the Trinity. They're all over! Even the Didache-The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles (circa 96AD) spoke of the trinity in baptism (Part 7). I can somewhat understand if you're talking about believing and so seeing, but only somewhat. Careful reading and it can't missed.

I think the important point to remember is the writers of the NT experienced God as Trinity. They didn’t have the later vocabulary to describe the finer points of this experience and wasn’t until later the church could address the objections of later believers. If you read carefully the pages of the NT the doctrine is certainly present just not in the same terms as later Christians would later use to define the doctrine over and against heresies that had popped up. To say otherwise is having a presupposition that Trinity was Alien to the pages of scripture. And therefore the doctrine must have come later.

hedrick said:

We need to be honest enough to realize that the Trinity as it developed is not in the NT. What is in the NT are various statements that led later theologians to develop the Trinity.

The NT largely distinguishes between Jesus and God. Jesus talks about God as someone else. Paul consistently differentiates between God and Christ.

However in passages where the authors reflect on the significance of Christ, they look to the Jewish tradition of speaking of "intermediates" to refer to God's way of being present with his people. Sometimes this was attributes of God, e.g. his Wisdom or Word, described as being distinct. E.g. lady wisdom in Prov or the Logos of John 1. Sometimes it was men such as Moses elevated to God's throne. The NT uses this type of terminology to refer to Christ. Also in a few places such as Col 1, it speaks of him as being present in creation. So in these various ways Jesus is identified as God's way of being present with us, distinguished from God but not entirely separate.

As Christianity was interpreted in the context of Greek understanding, the Trinity was developed, over a couple of centuries, as the most accurate translation of these Biblical ideas into the Greek mode of thought. As the NT both distinguishes Jesus from God and identifies him as God's presence, this was represented as Christ having two natures, human and divine. As God's presence was described in the NT in terms of intermediates that were spoken of as distinguished from God but ultimately were part of God's activity, the divinity that was present through Christ was understood as being distinguished from the Father but still God.

Attempts at finding hypostases and natures in the NT are going to fail. Collections of out-of-context NT texts trying to "prove" the Trinity are helpful only to people who already believe. But if you try to understand what the NT authors were trying to say, and how the later theologians tried to make this intelligible in their own terms, I think you can see why the Trinity developed. It's also useful to look at the range of alternatives to the Trinity that failed, and understand why the Trinity was more successful.

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The Triune God is all over the pages of Scripture beginning in Genesis 1 where we read the creation account in 6 days.

Gen 1:26
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;

Gen 3:22
Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil;

Gen 11:7
Come, let Us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

Gen 19:24
Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;

Isa 6:8
Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?

Isa 48:16
"Come near to Me, listen to this:
From the first I have not spoken in secret,
From the time it took place, I was there.
And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit."

Isa 61:1
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;

Ps 110:1
The Lord says to my Lord:
"Sit at My right hand
Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet."

Zech 12:10
"And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like the bitter weeping over a first-born.

And we have numerous passages in the N.T. where Jesus tells us about pour Plural God in John 14-17, Matthew 28:19-20.

And several Apostles in their writings do the same thing. Let me know if you need Scriptures.

hope this helps !!!

Here are a few NT passages revealing the Plural nature of God that is Triune. Jesus and The Apostles in their writings reveals the Father, Son and Holy Spirit working together in the believers life. They are distinct Persons within the One God.

John 15:26-27
26 "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, 27and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.


John 16:5-8
"But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, Where are You going?' 6"But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7"But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go,I will send Him to you. 8"And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;


John 16:13-15
13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14"He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15"All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.


Matthew 3:16-17
16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."


Matt 28:19-20
19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. "


Now below Paul will lay out our triune God below in these passages.


Rom 8:9-11
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Rom 8:14-17
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!" 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.

Rom 8:26-36
26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; 30 and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? 33 Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; 34 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Rom 14:17-18
17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.

1 Cor 2:10-16
10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Cor 12:3-6
3 Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus is accursed"; and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. 6 There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons.

Titus 3:4-7
4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that being justified by His grace we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

hope this helps !!!