How did the Trinity doctrine develop in the early church?

[Brakelite]

Open discussion on the development of the Trinitarian doctrine.

Through compulsion and persecution against dissenters.

 

[Grailhunter]

Let's discuss "Trinitarianism as the outgrowth of the early Church’s effort to understand and explain its own experience of the risen Christ in philosophical terms." - @RedFan

Open discussion on the development of the Trinitarian doctrine.

[

The term Trinity was coined shortly after the biblical period but not the one God formula.

The one God formula came out of the Ecumenical Councils because they could not come up with anything else to settle the disagreements. So this belief is essentially Catholic doctrine.

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 reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly or formally a biblical belief.”

Christ explains the oneness concept like this….
John 17:22 “And the glory which to them; that they may be one just as We are one.” Because Yeshua says “just as” this is an exactness, a duplication of a condition that we can achieve, and He states that this condition of “oneness” can apply to us, but it has nothing to do with absorption or singularity, but rather a condition of spiritual union and solidarity between God and us.

The next verse further defines this by describing a unity with Christ that would cause the same condition with us as it did with them, a condition of perfection. Again, not talking to Himself, in John 17:23 “I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that You did send Me, and do love them, even as you do love Me.”

In this context millions of people could be made one...one being a abstract concept of one, but a more literal meaning of unity, solidarity, and perfection and even a “body” that is considered one....the body of Christ or the body of the Church.

And then, the next verse is probably one of the best verses to put this oneness concept into perspective. The leading verses are speaking of the works of the Holy Spirit and then ends with this explanation. 1st Corinthians 12:11-13 “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the member of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.”

 

[St. SteVen]

St. SteVen said:
Open discussion on the development of the Trinitarian doctrine.

Through compulsion and persecution against dissenters.

It sounds like you have an axe to grind.
I know there are doctrinal arguments for all three options.
- Unitarian
- Binitarian
- Trinitarian

[

 

[Brakelite]

The term Trinity was coined shortly after the biblical period but not the one God formula.

The one God formula came out of the Ecumenical Councils because they could not come up with anything else to settle the disagreements. So this belief is essentially Catholic doctrine.

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 reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly or formally a biblical belief.”

Christ explains the oneness concept like this….
John 17:22 “And the glory which to them; that they may be one just as We are one.” Because Yeshua says “just as” this is an exactness, a duplication of a condition that we can achieve, and He states that this condition of “oneness” can apply to us, but it has nothing to do with absorption or singularity, but rather a condition of spiritual union and solidarity between God and us.

The next verse further defines this by describing a unity with Christ that would cause the same condition with us as it did with them, a condition of perfection. Again, not talking to Himself, in John 17:23 “I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that You did send Me, and do love them, even as you do love Me.”

In this context millions of people could be made one...one being a abstract concept of one, but a more literal meaning of unity, solidarity, and perfection and even a “body” that is considered one....the body of Christ or the body of the Church.

And then, the next verse is probably one of the best verses to put this oneness concept into perspective. The leading verses are speaking of the works of the Holy Spirit and then ends with this explanation. 1st Corinthians 12:11-13 “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the member of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and were all made to drink of one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many.”

It isn't often I agree with you, but I think you are on to something here. That Jesus said we can all have the same unity with Him add the Father, and even with one another, is a huge promise and flies in the face of the exclusivity of oneness so many ascribe to the Godhead.

 

[Brakelite]

St. SteVen said:
Open discussion on the development of the Trinitarian doctrine.

It sounds like you have an axe to grind.
I know there are doctrinal arguments for all three options.
- Unitarian
- Binitarian
- Trinitarian

[

An axe to grind? I think that any true doctrine that comes to light doesn't need the power of the state to convince the church of its validity. Benjamin Franklin spoke on this wise...“When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one.”

Compulsion and persecution over the Trinity doctrine became significant after Christianity became intertwined with imperial power. The state actively enforced doctrinal conformity, and those who dissented from the Trinitarian view faced legal and social penalties, and sometimes violence, especially from the late 4th century onwards.
Destruction of Arian kingdoms the Heruli, Vandals, and Ostrogoths were eventually destroyed or absorbed by forces loyal to the Catholic Church and the Byzantine Empire. Historical accounts suggest that the Papacy and its allies, particularly Emperor Justinian, played a significant role in orchestrating military campaigns against these kingdoms, motivated in part by the desire to eliminate Arianism and establish religious unity under the Nicene Creed. The destruction off those kingdoms matches perfectly with the prophecy of Daniel regarding the example uprooting of 3 horns by the little horn...aka the papacy. The other 7 kingdoms were also originally Arian for the most part, but converted under pressure from the Catholic church, particularly through the threat of war from, for example, Clovis, King of the Franks, who was later known traditionally, as a result of his conversion, often referred to as the “first Catholic prince” and later acquired the honorary titles of “Most Christian King” and “Eldest Son of the Church” (“Rex Christianissimus” and “primogenitus Ecclesiae” in Latin).

 

[St. SteVen]

Compulsion and persecution over the Trinity doctrine became significant after Christianity became intertwined with imperial power. The state actively enforced doctrinal conformity, and those who dissented from the Trinitarian view faced legal and social penalties, and sometimes violence, especially from the late 4th century onwards.

Seems that the problem was the state, not the Trinity doctrine. (one of many)

[

 

[Brakelite]

Seems that the problem was the state, not the Trinity doctrine. (one of many)

[

To believe the state acted independently of the church and without church approval even encouragement, is very hard to swallow.