The Doctrine Of The Trinity And The Nicene Creed And Athanasian Trinity

In the 4th century there are different schools of thought that were developed in Antioch, were they try to literarily interpret the Scriptures with a great deal of emphasis on the historical context of Trinity. Arius who is also known as Nicene, came up with the Nicene Creed by arguing the fact that Jesus was not God, and the Father by itself is true God. Base on the fact that God created Jesus, Arius was able to support his argument with the books of (Proverbs 8:22 and John 14:28) “the Father is greater than I” as a proof.

At the center of the Christian faith is a mystery. This mystery has everything to do with the identity of God, the nature of Christian community, the salvation history and our understanding of Christology. This is the mystery of the Trinity – how is the Godhead fully three persons, and yet one nature? Theophilus was the first to name the ‘triad’ nature of God in his letter To Autolycus in 170 A.D. Tertullian was the first to offer terminology to describe this mystery in Against Praxeas claiming “the Trinity” involved three ‘persons’ of one substance. This theology emerged from the Biblical witness, even though scripture offers no doctrine of the Trinity itself. Even more so, the development of the doctrine of the Trinity grew from the early church’s worship, witness and corporate experience. When faced with a mystery, heresies can’t help but emerge. Docetism and Arianism, Adoptionism and Monarchianism, Nestorianism and Monophysitism are just a few of the heresies that emerged in attempts to explain away the mystery. And yet, theologians from the second century to the twenty-first century are faced with the challenge of witnessing to this mystery in both the theologia and the oikonomia of the Trinity. The church experiences the economic Trinity as new believers are drawn into Trinitarian community through an ongoing

God the Son is revealed in the Christian Scriptures. God the Spirit is revealed in the Church. The Trinitarian doctrine states that there are three co-eternal, equal persons in God, which is the notion of unity within community. The Trinitarian doctrine was further developed and defined at the councils of Nicaea in 325 CE and Constantinople in 381 CE. God was always trinity, however gradually this reality became known through revelation. Jesus calls God and speaks of the spirit which indicates a plurality in God. The difficulty is reconciling the concept of monotheism with the notion of God existing as three persons. The divine essence is common to all three, however the three persons have attributes or properties which distinguished them eg Fatherhood, sonship and sanctifying power. Once essence means that the actions (creation, redemption, sanctification) are attributable to all. Mutual relations is the concept that the terms Father and Son are not titles but expressions of a relationship and thus all three persons are co-equal

The Council of Nicaea, however, rejected Arianism and affirmed that Jesus was not created like all other things were. They said that Jesus and God share the same divine substance, which means that Jesus is one with God the Father. Essentially, Jesus is God. Saint Athanasius, who was a bishop of Alexandria at the time of the Nicene council, shared a similar theology to that set out in the council. Athanasius

Athanasius believed that Jesus was “shepherd, high priest…Passover Sacrafice,” which manifests itself now in the living incarnate son of Jesus Christ. Jesus is unique, however, in the fact that he is the all-sustaining high priest “without transition and without succession.” Athanasius also believed that Jesus is eternally generated by the father, and that Jesus, along with the father, is unoriginate, from alpha to omega. Leithart states that the Arians dishonor God by describing Jesus as originate, while Athanasius equates Jesus with God and the Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity. There are four primary paradigms that Athanasius finds in

In conversation with Daniel Migliore give an account of what it means to confess that God is triune. Give care to an explication of “economic and immanent trinity,” and perichoresis.

The Trinity consists of God, the Father, Jesus, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. The Christian faith recognizes there is one God and He is one with His Son, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The purpose of this essay is to describe the interrelationship of the three persons of the Trinity. This will include the concepts of the economic trinity, the essential trinity and the social trinity.

As a result, fellowship, prayer, Bible study, worship, and most importantly salvation in its purest form can be discerned and acted upon correctly. In addition, a further understanding can be thus gained regarding the person of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Finally, heresies and heretical groups or beliefs can lead God’s followers astray from the truth and create an improper understanding, and thus relationship with God. Positions past and present have, and are, attempting to mislead Christians about the Trinity. A skewed view of the Trinity can result in a view of God as either divinely apart from creation or simply a better version of all the best attributes of humans. Some positions even take away from the Divinity of Jesus Christ. All of these views severely diminish who God is and alters a proper and true relationship and worship. It is a necessity that these errant views be exposed as a hindrance to God in order not to mislead God’s followers. Likewise a Biblically sound explanation of the Trinity is needed. As a result, a true and pure knowledge of the concept of the Trinity is crucially needed to understand God and be obedient to the Bible.

Arianism was a form of Christianity that believed that Christ was made by the Father, therefor not coeternal with the Father and not consubstantial either. Arianism was popular among the Ostrogoth’s and Visigoths, as well as the ruling elite of many other German tribes in the Late Roman, Early Dark Ages period. Arianism’s popularity died out by 700 A.D., due to it being deemed heretical and being contradicted by things such as the Nicene Creed.

Non-trinitarians are people who do not believe in the trinitarian idea that God is three different hypostases who coexist equally and are united as one. Non-trinitarians believe in adoptionism, also known as dynamic monarchianism, which is a heresy that first appeared in the second century. It states that Jesus was purely human until the Father chose or adopted him to be his son because of his sinless and perfect life. This heresy reveals the trinity as the Father being genuinely the main Godhead because adopting someone shows power over them. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are viewed as the minors because Jesus wasn’t pre-existent and if the Holy Spirit exceeds from both Father and Son equally, there would also be a time when the Holy Spirit has

“Christians, for all their orthodox profession of faith in the Trinity, are almost just monotheist in their actual religious experience. One might almost dare to affirm that if the doctrine of the Trinity were to be erased as false, most religious literature could be preserved almost unchanged throughout the process.”

The early Christians agree that it was essential to explain the relationship between Jesus and God. Yet their assertions about Christ raised questions about the unity of God. Trinitarian theology provided an important solution; it kept Christians from backsliding into superstitious polytheism, but it also prevented Jewish monotheism from undermining the significance of Christ

In the Christian faith triune God is very significant. “Christian” is Trinitarian, describing Jesus as the one whom the Father anoints (christos) with the Spirit so that the Spirit may anoint our own lives (16). Christians confess Jesus as the risen Lord of the universe, but is proclaimed to be inseparable from the one who sent him, the one Jesus knew intimately as “Abba,” or “dear Father.” The ultimate paradox of Christianity is Jesus. Having Jesus at its very center disclosed as the source, the meaning, and the definitive answer to all of human longings causes this ultimate paradox. Fatula goes on to discuss, that although Jesus is the triune God, many of the people would not identify this God as the living God we actually experience in our own daily lives.

Most Germanic people initially converted to Arian Christianity from Paganism. Arianism understood the godhead in hierarchical terms. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was a created being who did not share the eternal nature of God the Father but who was superior to God the Holy Spirit. In contrast, Orthodox Catholicism understood the godhead as comprising three “coequal,” “coeternal” members. The contrast between these two belief systems represents a theological power struggle within the Christian community during this time period (Jenkins

Anglicanism: They believe Jesus Christ had both divine and human natures, and that he died and rose again.