Though the word “Trinity” is not explicitly found in the Bible, the teaching that there are three individual personalities of divine nature (known in the New Testament as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is thoroughly scriptural and has been generally acknowledged by the writers of “Christendom” since the apostolic age.
“Around A.D. 190, Theodotus of Byzantium advocated the absolute personality of God. Asserting that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were one person, he sought to propagate his views in the church at Rome. He is said to be “the first representative of Dynamistic Monarchianism whose views have been recorded”.
The Trinity doctrine cannot be proven by simply reading the scriptures; it has to be described and explained in
…show more content…
The question is: what does Scripture mean by one God? In the Old Testament, the words el, eloah, and elohim, from related roots, are generic designations of God. The New Testament term is theos.
“Elohim”, meaning "God", is sometimes confused to show the plurality of the Godhead, this is not a correct interpretation. In the Hebrew words are plural in construction but singular in the way that they are used. Also the Hebrew often used plural forms to show majesty or greatness of one person or deity. Even though these are plural words, to say they represent a multiplicity in the Godhead would be wrong. Historically Hebrew people and there writings are monotheistic. When you are referring to God using “Elohim”, it is always used with a singular verb such as “is” and “created” which are found in Genesis 1:1, but the scripture also uses Elohim in pagan references in the Bible, and in doing so it uses plural verbs with “Elohim” as well.
These appellations, when used of the true God, simply suggest the nature or quality of being divine—deity. The word “God” is not the name of a personality; it is the name of a nature, a quality of being. When it is said, therefore, that there is but one God, the meaning is: there is but one divine nature.
“The treatment of God will fall into three parts: first we will consider that which pertains to the
The first four chapters of Genesis indicate that God is the eternal Creator the universe; that God communicates with His creation and evaluates his own work, and that God is sovereign, exercising “supreme authority and absolute power over all things” (Lecture 2, para. 5). There is but one true God, who exists as a Triune Being and is three Persons in one essence; a Divine essence which exists wholly, invisibly, simultaneously and eternally, within three members of the one Godhead—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (Lecture 2, para. 7). Harmoniously linked, “each divine figure of the Trinity exercises dominion over creation and is involved in the biblical narrative in its own unique, yet cooperative, way” (Johnson, p. 178). The unity of the Trinity not only illustrates the full divinity of God, the immeasurable power, benevolence, wisdom and omnipresence distinctly setting Him apart from His creation, but also shows that He is the source of all that is good, true, beautiful, loving, just, and
I will like to crave your indulgence to the fact that "Nicene concept of Trinity" is never stated in the Bible, and it is that early Christians as well as the scriptures clearly points out the fact that Jesus was fully divine and pre-existent. For the fact that, none of the early Christian theologians fully asserted the doctrine of the Trinity, not even a speculation about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. According to the father of the paganism description of Trinity "God can in no way be described." (Schindler 148).
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
This God however does take on three forms known as The Trinity. The Christian doctrine states that God exists as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
This is known as the Trinity. The Trinity is broken down into the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three are completely spate, but they are all the same. Although it may seem that there are three different beings, they are all the same God. This is a vital belief of the Christian
Trinity is one God. Each of the persons of the trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit “is God whole and entire”. I believe that the trinity of persons consists of one substance and one essence. Each of the persons is that supreme reality, the divine substance, essence or nature. Each of the three persons are distinct from one another, but known to be related to one another.
During the stories in Exodus, the small community of Egyptian’s fundamental culture is depicted through the departure being a polytheistic culture into the transformation of a monotheistic one. The stories in Exodus gently guides the community via the soft and gentle innuendo of a single God. This transformation begins as: “So that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth.” (Exodus 9:14) This is quite a non-confrontational way to begin proposing the idea of a single God. The words here are chosen very carefully with no outrageous claims that would have been unfathomable to someone living at the time such as being the only God in all of the heavens or universe, simply
This was the question that popped up in my head after reading the first chapter of The Orthodox Way, God as Mystery. More ironically, before they answered my question did they tell me that Jesus Christ is God and Holy Spirit is God as well. Usually multi-identities are not an issue for me or for anyone, but this time is a little, or a lot, different when it comes to God. In the chapter, God as Trinity, “The Christian God is not just a unit but a union, not just unity but a community… He is Trinity: three equal persons, each one dwelling in the other two by virtue of an unceasing movement of mutual love” said Ware (P. 27). Ono thing that needs to be confirmed first is that there is only One God, and God is the one essence embracing three persons. Secondly, in the case of Trinity a person is not just an individual, as opposed to that three human persons always “retain their own will and own energy no matter how closely they co-operate together” (P. 30). This indicates the property of “distinction but never separation” within the three persons; they are distinct as in differentiation and they are never separate because of the relationship formed by the shared one will and one energy. As a consequence, we surely have to turn to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit if we want to know God holistically, especially the Oneness of God (Jones,
The orthodox Christianity (such as Catholic tradition) asserts that there is only one God, not three gods. Furthermore, it states that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit compose of only one God, implying that the three divine Persons are distinct in the way they relate to each other (Mere Catholicism).
The monotheistic belief of Judaism recognises that God is omnipotent, omnipresent and pure spirit. The concept of the oneness of God, is expressed through the Shema which is an affirmation of faith Jews proclaim, commencing with “Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one.”- Deuteronomy 6:4. This
God, the creator of all is known in Hebrew as Elohim, meaning strength or power. He is also known as YHVH translated
“The Trinity is the basis of the gospel, and the gospel is the declaration of the Trinity in action.” (J I Packer, likesuccess.com) The Trinity consists of God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit, yet they make up one God. It is the simple philosophy of the 3-in-1 or three persons, one essence first brought up by Tertullian. It is this philosophy that allows Christianity to be a monotheism.
Judaism as well as its offshoot and formation into the Christian religion both place great emphasis on the notion of their monotheistic God as revealed in the early scriptures. To them God has revealed Himself as the one Lord of all. Evident in the first Commandment that was
Genesis introduces us to the true nature of God, that being the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit or simply put The Holy Trinity. Some may wonder how can God be three different entities, but this isn't the case and the simple answer would be because He's not limited in being like humans. But to further elaborate the Book tell us that "The Holy Trinity is one God in three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy
It is important to begin by stating that there are many different doctrinal views of the Trinity. However I believe that the doctrine of Trinity defines one God who is eternally existent as three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) The Father, Son, and