How did the Trinity doctrine develop in the early church?

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GodsGrace

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You are correct, Jesus was not created. He was begotten. And because Jesus created all things, (obviously He didn't create Himself) therefore He was begotten before creation... Before time. Begotten's predominant meaning in Scripture is not unique as some would have it, but born.
I've always disliked the word begotten because in other languages the meaning is more clear.
GENERATED would be a clearer meaning.
IF you're right then Jesus was created....it doesn't matter WHEN.
Yet you say I'm right in stating that Jesus was NOT created.
So some confusion here.
Jesus was unique, absolutely, but today many reduce His divinity and deity by removing the sense of birth and being brought forth of the Father. Jesus is a real literal Son, brought forth at some time in eternity (if there's such an expression), before time began.
I agree that it's really difficult to speak of eternity.
Jesus was not born from the Father, as a child would be born of the mother (and father).

Jesus was always God and always existed.
A created being cannot be God because there can only be one God and it would have to be the one doing the creating.
You're doing what @Grailhunter is doing....you're not denying that Jesus is God,,,but you're creating two gods.
This is one of the heresies the early church fought and for which the creeds were written.

1 Corinthians 8:5-6
5 For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords,
6 yet for us there is but
one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

If only God can create...
and Jesus can create....
and there is only one God as 1 Cor states....
then we cannot create another god but must come to some understanding that
God Father and God Son are ONE BEING...ONE NATURE.

The relationship between time and eternity is never explained in Scripture. Are we to believe that in eternity there is no past present, or future? Did not God plan and prepare with His Son the creation of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them? Planning means preparation for tomorrow. Future. That God implemented a form of measuring time in creation, doesn't negate time already present.
Agreed on the time...who can understand it?

But did God plan with the Son?
Doesn't Genesis just state that God said?
(and Jesus was there).
 

GodsGrace

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This is a simple thing. One God impregnated a woman from the blood line of King David and she conceived from Him and she had a baby. The baby was another God. Yeshua got His human form from His mother and Divinity from His Father. The verse.....God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.....is true and accurate. Since the scriptures say conceived that means her egg reacted to something was it sperm or presto changeo I will leave that to you
What happened to:

John 1:1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.


In the beginning...from always (time is difficult to grasp as @Brakelite has noted)
THE WORD was with God and the WORD was God.

Jesus is THE WORD.


John 1:14
14 And the
Word became flesh,,,


And THE WORD became flesh.

John is saying that THE WORD always exised and then, at some point, became flesh.
 
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Grailhunter

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G,,,
I don't even know how to respond to this.
I don't know if my posts nos. 818 and 819 even would apply to what you're stating.
Usually the debate is to whether Jesus is God or whether or not He is created...
what you're doing, honestly, I've never come into contact with before.

What happened to the shema?

Deuteronomy 6:4
4 "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!


So are we like the pagans that believed in a myriad of gods?

When Jesus was on earth the Father WAS greater than He was.
While on earth Jesus did NOT know everything....
This does not mean He didn't exist before or that He was a 2nd type of god.

I just don't even know how to debate this.
Christians must adhere to the basic tenets of Christianity.

I believe the creeds worked this out.

I was going to post some ECFs but I don't even think that would help because you're not denying
that Jesus is God.

That is OK, old habits dies hard.....so do false beliefs.....I am not mad at you for not believing me.
This one has its own life because it is not biblical......They are named in the Bible.....How clearer does it need to be?
Over a hundred scriptures prove the one God formula wrong hands down.

The term Trinity is not in the Bible. The ECF's? The ECF's coined the term Trinity early on, but did not define it as 3 Gods in one. It was not until the Ecumenical Councils has unresolvable disagreements regarding Yahweh and Yeshua and the Holy Spirit that they come up with the Trinity being 3 in 1 because Emperor Constitine demanded an agreement. So the council came up with the 3 in 1 formula and excommunicated or killed anyone that opposed it.

The Bible can say simple and clear things and people do not pay attention. Yeshua created? The Bible says He was conceived and born and had a mother. Called the Son of God and well known as the Son of God. Simon Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

The McKenzie Bible Dictionary explains it this way....."The Trinity of God is defined by the Church as the belief that in God there are three persons who subsist in one nature. The belief as so defined was not reached only until the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly or formally a biblical belief."

So now you can say you heard it from someone besides me.
 
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St. SteVen

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Yeah, it got confusing, because he mixed different claims into one sentence.
I understand, no worries.

That being said, I still think the Septuagint (LXX), which was available in Jesus' day, is still a good resource.

 

Grailhunter

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What happened to:

John 1:1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.


In the beginning...from always (time is difficult to grasp as @Brakelite has noted)
THE WORD was with God and the WORD was God.

Jesus is THE WORD.


John 1:14
14 And the
Word became flesh,,,


And THE WORD became flesh.

John is saying that THE WORD always existed and then, at some point, became flesh.

There is no way to harmonize this with the Old Testament. No way to get out of picking one or the other. In the Old Testament Yahweh created everything and He said He created everything and He repeated said He was the only God and there was no other like Him. Taking creation away from the Father is demoting Him.

And according to the Mosaic Law anyone that said there was another God was executed. Of course that changed when the one God had a Son.

Some were fixated on the Word.....Logos thing and it was decidedly Gnostic coming from the Greeks in the 6th century BC.
 
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HealthyShape

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I understand, no worries.

That being said, I still think the Septuagint (LXX), which was available in Jesus' day, is still a good resource.

I have nothing against Septuagint, it seems closer to the New Testament citations than the Masoretic text.

However, no available edition of the Septuagint uses the YHWH tetragrammaton.
 
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Grailhunter

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I've always disliked the word begotten because in other languages the meaning is more clear.
GENERATED would be a clearer meaning.
IF you're right then Jesus was created....it doesn't matter WHEN.
Yet you say I'm right in stating that Jesus was NOT created.
So some confusion here.

Born is not created....And no biblical explanation for the pre-existing Yeshua forming Himself as a fetus and Scotty beaming Him into Miriam's worm. And then you have the perpetual virgin thing where Scotty beams Him in her womb and out of her womb. The Bible does not explain anything like that and if it did it would be weird ..... and the words conceived and born and begotten would not fit into that explanation. It would be different and Yeshua would not be the Son of God......Just another God. One of many arguments of the Ecumenical Councils.
 
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GodsGrace

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Somewhat a mystery.....The name of the Holy Spirit is not revealed in the scriptures and this God's involvement with the impregnation of Miriam is not explained.

How is God's involvement not explained?

Luke 1:35
35 The angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.

So many changes between the testaments.....What is the story of the Holy Spirit? Where did this God come from? The scriptures do not say.
It's only important that the Holy Spirit was always mentioned,,,
He comes from the Father of course....
Jesus said He would send a helper...
from where?
From heaven.
Some like to say the Holy Spirit is not a God just Yahweh spirit which is holy. It is easy just to say the Yeshua and the Holy Spirit always existed. NO.
The Holy Spirit is referred to as a person:

Romans 8:26-27
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.

If the Holy Spirit intercedes for us...
to Whom is He interceding?
The Father

The persons do speak to each other.
As Jesus spoke to Father in the Garden.

The Holy Spirit is represented as a Person:

Ephesians 4:30a
30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,

1 Corinthians 12:11
11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.

Acts 8:29
29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join this chariot."

Exist and time continuum. A God relates to time differently then we......not a clock.....a time continuum string. Yeshua did not exist before His conception.....but after He was conceived He existed in the past, present, and future. But Yeshua did not exist in manner where he could create everything. That is why He is not mentioned doing anything in the Old Testament.
But the NT teaches that God spoke but Jesus did the creating:

John 1:3
3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing * came into being that has come into being.


Jesus is throughout the OT.
Whenever God was SEEN...it was Jesus.
 
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Grailhunter

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How is God's involvement not explained?

Known as the Son of God not the Son of the Holy Spirit. Or if 3 in 1 Son of Themselves?
I am not saying the Holy Spirit was not involved......just wonder how.

But the NT teaches that God spoke but Jesus did the creating:

You are right the New Testament does teach that, but the Old Testament does not. Yahweh did all the creating and according to Him there was no other God....no other God to create anything. And Yahweh said several times no other God.
 

Grailhunter

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Same difference.

If He CAME INTO BEING,
it means God created Him and He's a created being.

Conceived is not created, the word conceived is used not created. If He was not conceived He was not the Son of God.
Born is not created....And no biblical explanation for the pre-existing Yeshua forming Himself as a fetus and Scotty beaming Him into Miriam's worm. And then you have the perpetual virgin thing where Scotty beams Him in her womb and out of her womb. The Bible does not explain anything like that and if it did it would be weird ..... and the words conceived and born and begotten would not fit into that explanation. It would be different and Yeshua would not be the Son of God......Just another God. One of many arguments of the Ecumenical Councils.
 

HealthyShape

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You are right the New Testament does teach that, but the Old Testament does not. Yahweh did all the creating and according to Him there was no other God....no other God to create anything. And Yahweh said several times no other God.
In that case "Yahweh" does not refer to just Father, but can be interchangeably applied to each person of the Trinity. Problem solved?
 

HealthyShape

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Kind of like the mother ship. And a beings with 8 arms, each arm has a name. Eight in one....that is even better.
No, three is better, because that is the New Testament teaching. And persons in Trinity are not like three parts (arms), that would be partialism and a heresy.

And stop mocking Christianity, thanks.
 
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rebuilder 454

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I know there are no J's in the Greek.
In different languages the name of Jesus begins with a different letter.

What does this have to do with there being only ONE supreme being?
You're creating 3 gods G.
There can only be one God.

I'm not getting into a debate about whether or not Jesus is God.

The creeds were in response to heretical teachings that were circulating.
But Jesus was declared to be uncreated from the very beginning.


View attachment 73178

For instance, the Apostles Creed declared Jesus to be born of the Holy Spirit,,,making Him God.
But it doesn't teach that He always existed...so another creed.

You know all this....each one clarified something that was being incorrectly taught by some.

I like the Italian...
Jesus was GENERATED
NOT created.

Generated means He came out from something....
This is how I understand the Trinity.....
Jesus is the WORD of God....the mind and intellect of God....
At some point in time, He became human and took on the form of a man...
but He had always existed with God Father...He was always a part of Him.

Hebrews 1:3
3 And He is the
radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.

If Jesus is the exact representation of God's nature...
it means He has the same nature...
it means He is God....
God has always existed and is not created.

The JW believe Jesus is the Son of God...but was created.
We do not consider them to be Christian.
Nope ,way off.
Jesus is the creator.
In your model of assumptions you now have Jesus creating himself.
 

GodsGrace

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Nope ,way off.
Jesus is the creator.
In your model of assumptions you now have Jesus creating himself.
I know you haven't read all my posts - I also do not read every post on any given thread.
(try my post no. 831)

So since I know Jesus is the creator,,,
HOW have I made Him the creator in the post to which you are responding??
 

GodsGrace

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Only in retrospect.
There was no Jesus before the Word (Logos) became flesh.
I know what you mean SS....
BUT

Jesus is THE WORD....
THE WORD always existed.


The Word became flesh (John 1:14)
but The Word existed even before that.

Again:

John 1:1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.


John 1:14
14 And the Word became flesh,



The Word was with God and was God and the Word became flesh.
But the Word existed even before the Word became flesh.