Understanding Of The Trinity Chapter 1 Summary

Fee completes his writings with his own conclusion: “The Spirit must be reinstated into the Trinity, where he has never been excluded in our creeds and liturgies, but has been practically excluded from the experienced life of the church.” Moreover, he argues that the very nature of the Triune God, as being three yet one, must become the character of the church both in its oneness and in its function, by the very application of the Spirit’s threefold work of the Trinity. Without this experience, the witness of the churches to the Resurrection today will remain generally ineffective in comparison with the witness of the early Christians, though they lived in a culture very similar to ours. As the title of Fee’s book emphasizes, we are meant to find God’s Spirit empowering for us in the present era while at the same time awaiting the consummation of Christ’s final return.

The Nicene Creed is the creed or profession of faith that was adopted in the city of Nicaea by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325. At that time, the text ended after the words "We believe in the Holy Spirit", after which an anathema was added. The doctrine of the Trinity is commonly expressed as: "One God, three Persons”, but this word "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible. So the doctrine is formally defined in the Nicene Creed, which declares Jesus to be: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father." in 325, the Council of Nicea set out to officially define the relationship of the Son to the Father, in response to the controversial teachings of

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

Trinity: The Trinity was a key feature of Christianity. The Trinity symbolized the three persons of God, the father, the son, and the Holy

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

Although the consubstantial nature of Jesus and God was confirmed at Nicaea, it wasn’t definitively defined because Arians responded with another heretical view: Jesus and God were homoiousious. The belief that God and Jesus were only similar in nature allowed for subordinationism to manifest, which was a heresy that asserted God the Father was superior to Jesus and the Holy Spirit (Williams, 2001, p.133). So this belief accepts the Trinity but has misinterpreted the orthodox declaration of the idea. Arius told of the unequal glories amongst each “distinct being” within the Trinity (Williams, 2001, p.102). This was scorned by Athanasius who knew of the homoousious relationship through scripture (Colossians 2:9), which is how God expresses

Saint Augustine, one of the best scholars of the early church, portrayed the Trinity as practically identical to the three sections of an individual: personality, soul, and will. They are three unmistakable viewpoints, yet they are conjoined and together constitute one bound together individual. The purpose of this research paper is to further emphasize, highlight, and defend St. Augustine’s conclusion that the Holy Trinity is one God existing in three persons according to the meeting at the Council of Nicea 325.

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.

There are three foundational points in this theological approach that provide comprehension for that which seems beyond understanding --- God in one being; God in three persons. First, the main idea is centered on joining with Christ in the continuing ministry that substantiates the

ideas of God the Father, Jesus the Son of God and the Holy Spirit in

The essential trinity focuses on the relationship of the Son and Holy Spirit within God Himself. Augustine of Hippo taught the basis of essential trinity using his analysis of love: to love, there must be a lover, a beloved and their sharing a mutual love. On this basis of his psychological analogy, Augustine argues for a threefold understanding of the Godhead, in terms of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (McGrath, pg 195). Augustine states that just as there are three entities of the mind, there can be three persons of God.

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.

the connection of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Euytches’ also presented the need to bring understanding when he combined the Son into one nature.

Mary Ann Fatula’s The Triune God of Christian Faith provides for the reader the inner life of God as well as insight into the human reality. Fatula’s writing draws the devotional discussion of the Trinity as the present-day effect of the Trinitarian faith is called to support attempts to articulate and live the Trinitarian mystery. The Trinity in a human’s life is the content of our definition of our human meaning and for an infinite gift: love. Each of us has a desire for achieving meaning, for love, and for wholeness. Fatula in her book develops the study of the divine ‘persons’ and states the importance of understanding what it is to be truly a ‘person’ of both human and divine potential.