I also want you to know that there is not enough paper and ink on the planet to capture all there is to say about the Trinity. People have written books that are thousands of pages long and they still fall short.
It is very helpful and available on amazon. It is also incredibly helpful in answering the most important question for humanity: How can I relate to GOD? The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Simply stated, God is one in essence and three in person. When we break this definition down we get three crucial truths: 1 the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, 2 each Person is fully God, 3 there is only one God.
Throughout the Old Testament you have shadows of the trinity everywhere. After its formulation and imperial enforcement towards the end of the fourth century, this sort of Christian theology reigned more or less unchallenged.
But before this, and again in post-Reformation modernity, the origin, meaning, and justification of trinitarian doctrine has been repeatedly disputed. These debates are discussed in supplementary documents to this entry. One aspect of these debates concerns the self-consistency of trinitarian theology.
Yet the tradition asserts exactly one god. Is the tradition, then, incoherent, and so self-refuting? Since the revival of analytic philosophy of religion in the s, many Christian philosophers have pursued what is now called analytic theology, in which religious doctrines are given formulations which are precise, and it is hoped self-consistent and otherwise defensible. A self is a being who is in principle capable of knowledge, intentional action, and interpersonal relationships.
A deity is commonly understood to be a sort of extraordinary self. In the Bible, the deity Yahweh a. More than a common deity in a pantheon of deities, he is portrayed as being the one creator of the cosmos, and as having uniquely great power, knowledge, and goodness. Some Trinity theories understand the Persons to be selves, and then try to show that the falsity of monotheism does not follow.
See section 2 below. But a rival approach is to explain that these three divine Persons are really ways the one divine self is, that is to say, modes of the one god. In current terms, one reduces all but one of the three or four apparent divine selves Father, Son, Spirit, the triune God to the remaining one. One of these four is the one god, and the others are his modes.
Because the New Testament seems to portray the Son and Spirit as somehow subordinate to the one God, one-self Trinity theories always either reduce Father, Son, and Spirit to modes of the one, triune God, or reduce the Son and Spirit to modes of the Father, who is supposed to be numerically identical to the one God. See section 1. Because God in the Bible is portrayed as a great self, at the popular level of trinitarian Christianity one-self thinking has a firm hold. One-self trinitarians often seem to have in mind the last of these.
If an event is in the simplest case a substance thing having a property or a relation at a time, then the Son etc. Modes may be essential to the thing or not; a mode may be something a thing could exist without, or something which it must always have so long as it exists. There are three ways these modes of an eternal being may be temporally related to one another: maximally overlapping, non-overlapping, or partially overlapping. First, they may be eternally concurrent—such that this being always, or timelessly, has all of them.
Second, they may be strictly sequential non-overlapping : first the being has only one, then only another, then only another. Finally, some of the modes may be had at the same times, partially overlapping in time. But three divine selves would be three gods. Similarly, Rahner says that God. All three theologians are assuming that the three modes of God are all essential and maximally overlapping.
Sabellian modalism is usually rejected on the grounds that such modes are strictly sequential, or because they are not intrinsic features of God, or because they are intrinsic but not essential features of God.
The first aspect of Sabellian modalism conflicts with episodes in the New Testament where the three appear simultaneously, such as the Baptism of Jesus in Matthew —7.
Ward , 90; Ward The simplest sort of one-self theory affirms that God is, because omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, the one divine self, and each Person of the Trinity just is that same self. Since the high middle ages trinitarians have used a diagram of this sort to explain the teaching that God is a Trinity. Because the numerical identity relation is defined as transitive and symmetrical, claims 1—3 imply the denials of 4—6.
If 1—6 are steps in an argument, that argument can continue thus:. This shows that 1—3 imply the denials of 4—6, namely, 8, 10, and Any Trinity doctrine which implies all of 1—6 is incoherent.
To put the matter differently: it is self-evident that things which are numerically identical to the same thing must also be numerically identical to one another. Thus, if each Person just is God, that collapses the Persons into one and the same thing. But then a trinitarian must also say that the Persons are numerically distinct from one another. But none of this is news to the Trinity theorists whose work is surveyed in this entry. Each theory here is built with a view towards undermining the above argument.
In other words, each theorist discussed here, with the exception of some mysterians see section 4. See sections 2 and 3. In contrast to these, he asserts that. Leftow considers his theory to be in the lineage of some prominent Latin-language theorists. See the supplementary document on the history of trinitarian doctrines, section 3. Time-travel does not require that entities are four-dimensional b, If a single dancer, then, time travels to the past to dance with herself, this does not amount to one temporal part of her dancing with a different temporal part of her.
If that were so, neither dancer would be identical to the whole, temporally extended woman. But Leftow supposes that both would be identical to her, and so would not be merely her temporal parts. He holds that if time travel is possible, a self may have multiple instances or iterations at a time. His theory is that the Trinity is like this, subtracting out the time dimension. God, in timeless eternity, lives out three lives, or we might say exists in three aspects.
But they are all one self, one God, as it were three times repeated or multiplied. Leftow wants to show what is wrong with the following argument , —6; cf. Creedal orthodoxy requires 1—3 and 5, yet 1—3 imply the unorthodox 4, and 1, 2 and 5 imply the unorthodox and necessarily false statement 6.
So what to do? Lines 1—4 seem perfectly clear, and the inference from 1—3 to 4 seems valid. So too does the inference from 1, 2, and 5 to 6. Why should 6 be thought impossible? One would expect Leftow, as a one-self trinitarian, to deny 1 and 2, on the grounds that neither Father nor Son are identical to the one self which is God, but rather, each is a mode of God.
But Leftow instead argues that premises 1 and 2 are unclear, and that depending on how they are understood, the argument will either be sound but not heretical, or unsound because it is invalid, 4 not following from 1—3, and 6 not following from 1, 2, and 5.
A temporally rigid term refers to a being at all parts of its temporal career. Such identity statements can only be true or false relative to times, or to something time-like , Relative to the Son-strand, 2 will be true, but 1 will be false. Rather, he asserts that the modes somehow constitute, cause, or give rise to each Person , —5. But they, all apparently three of them, just are are numerically, absolutely identical to that one self, that is, God thrice over or thrice repeated.
Similarly, one may object that Leftow is trying to illuminate the obscure the Trinity by the equally or more obscure the alleged possibility of time travel, and timeless analogues to it. Do not his Persons really, so to speak, collapse into one, since each is numerically identical to God? Byerly , About the cry of abandonment on the cross, Leftow urges that the New Testament reveals a Christ who although divine and so omniscient did not have full access to his knowledge, specifically knowledge of his relation to the Father, and so Christ could not have meant what Hasker said above.
On this sort of argument see sections 2. After all, the Son suffers, and both he and the Father are identical to God.
Recent metaphysicians have discussed the possibility of a simple partless object which is nonetheless spatially extended, occupying regions of space, but without having parts that occupy the sub-regions. Pickup gives some non—theological examples to motivate the idea that one thing may occupy multiple points of person space: the fictional example of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and humans suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorders —1. Using p1, p2, and p3 for different points in person space, the points which correspond to being, respectively, the Father, Son, and Spirit, claims 1—3 are read as:.
These claims entail the 1—3 we started with, understood as claims of numerical identity. But this method of interpretation transforms 4—6, which become:. And similarly with 5, 6. The point of all of this is that the six interpreted claims seem to be coherent, such that possibly, all of them are true. In other words, those are numerically identical.
Thus, unlike many Trinity theories, this one is arguably compatible with a doctrine of divine simplicity. Pickup defends this account from several objections. Further, each Person is a real person, as real as any human person —7.
Still, one may think the account denies the reality of the Persons. Pickup clarifies that they are not so many distinct realities, but rather each just is God.
Nor are they parts of God. But as explained above, person spaces are not understood to be real entities Second, it can be objected that catholic tradition demands the numerical distinctness of the Persons.
Pickup denies that it does, since it aims to avoid tritheism and affirms that each just is God Third, Person-collapse entails claims any trinitarian should deny, including that the Father just is the Son, and that the Spirit is three Persons.
But arguably any account of the Trinity must allow that the Persons differ at least in respect of origin, so that only the Son is begotten, only the Spirit proceeds, and only the Father begets the Son. Metaphysicians differ in how they try to show that this is possible —4. An example of a distributional property is an object being polka-dotted, which requires that it is one color some places and another color in other places.
What is controversial is that such properties can be fundamental, that they can belong to the basic metaphysical structure of reality, rather than being explained as no more than various smaller items having non-distributional properties Thus, we should not think that an extended simple which is heterogeneous both has and lacks a property, being F and not being F.
Rather, we should think that it has a single distributional property of being F at some of its locations and not being F at others. If, for instance, an extended simple could be colored, it might be polka-dotted, where this is understood as a fundamental property, rather than, for instance, black in some spots and not-black in others. Thus, we avoid saying that one and the same object at a single time is and is not black — This is the property of generating the Son at p1, being generated at p2, and being spirated at p3.
The persons of the Trinity, on this account, never do differ, although it may seem that way at first glance. In reply, Pickup denies that such claims are true, and suggests that conceptually, it seems that one may count persons and beings differently, even in merely human cases like the fictional Jekyll and Hyde, which he takes to be an instance of one entity that is two persons , Again, the cost of denying the numerical distinctness of the Persons may be too high for many trinitarians to accept.
And it would seem that trinitarians are committed to many differences between the Persons other than the properties or relations relating to origin. The Son died, but the Father did not. It is not clear that all of these seeming differences can be understood as really involving fundamental distributional properties of God. These teachings arguably assume the Son to be a self, not a mere mode of a self, and to be a different self than his Father.
Again, some traditional incarnation theories seems to assume that the eternal Son who becomes incarnate who enters into a hypostatic union with a complete human nature is the same self as the historical man Jesus of Nazareth. But no mere mode could be the same self as anything, and the New Testament seems to teach that this man was sent by another self, God.
If God exists necessarily and is essentially the creator and the redeemer of created beings in need of salvation, this implies it is not possible for there to be no creation, or for there to be no fallen creatures; God could not have avoided creating beings in need of redemption. One-self trinitarians may get around this by more carefully specifying the properties in question: not creator but creator of anything else there might be , and not redeemer but redeemer of any creatures in need of salvation there might be and which he should want to save.
See the supplementary document on unitarianism. Not implying modalism about the Son, this position is harder to refute on New Testament grounds, although mainstream theologians and some subordinationist unitarians reject it as inconsistent with New Testament language from which we should infer that the Holy Spirit is a self Clarke , See Burnap , —52; Lardner , 79—; Wilson , — One-self Trinity theories are motivated in part by the concern that if there are three divine selves, this implies that there are three gods.
Three-self theories, in various ways, deny this implication. They hold the Persons of the Trinity to be selves as defined above, section 1.
A major motivation here is that the New Testament writings seem to assume that the Father and Son and, some also argue, the Holy Spirit are different selves e. Layman , —2. Relative identity theorists think there is some mistake in this reasoning, so that things may be different somethings yet the same something else. They hold that the above reasoning falsely assumes something about numerical sameness.
They hold that numerical sameness, or identity, either can be or always is relative to a kind or concept. Things identical to the same thing must also be identical to one another. Doing this, one may say that the argument is invalid, having true premises but a false conclusion. Against this, the theories of this section assume that the three Persons of the Trinity are three selves Rea , Following Rea we divide relative identity trinitarian theories into the pure and the impure.
Pure theories accept 1 either that there is no such relation as absolute identity or that such statements are definable in terms of relative-identity relations, and 2 that trinitarian statements of sameness and difference e. Thus, while it is senseless to ask whether or not Paul and Saul are identical, we can ask whether or not Paul and Saul are the same human, same person, same apostle, same animal, etc.
The doctrine of the Trinity, then, is construed as the claim that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same God , but are not the same Person. As Joseph Jedwab explains, traditional Trinity language and commitments arguably lead naturally to a relative identity account.
Cain defends his more Geachian approach. Most philosophers hold, to the contrary, that the identity relation and its logic are well-understood; such are expounded in recent logic text-books, and philosophers frequently argue in ways that assume there is such a relation as identity Baber , ; Layman , One might turn to a weaker relative identity doctrine; outside the context of the Trinity, philosopher Nicholas Griffin ; cf.
Rea , —6 has argued that while there are identity relations, they are not basic, but must be understood in terms of relative identity relations. On either view, relative identity relations are fundamental. Rea objects that relative identity theory presupposes some sort of metaphysical anti-realism, the controversial doctrine that there is no realm of real objects which exists independently of human thought , —6. Baber replies that such worries are misguided, as the only aim of relative identity theory should be to show a way in which the Trinity might be coherent , But this widely accepted analysis is precisely what relative identity trinitarians deny.
This leads to the objection that relative-identity trinitarian claims are unintelligible that is, we have no grasp of what they mean. Tuggy a, —4, Layman , —2. After all, we can understand that the claim implies that Fluffy and Spike are the same animal, the same pet, and so on One may also object to either sort of relative identity account being the historical doctrine on the grounds that only those conversant in the logic of the last years or so have ever had a concept of relative identity.
But this may be disputed; Anscombe and Geach , argue that Aquinas should be interpreted along these lines, Richard Cartwright , claims to find the idea of relative identity in the works of Anselm and in the Eleventh Council of Toledo C. On Aquinas, see the supplementary document on the history of trinitarian doctrines section 4. Christopher Hughes Conn argues that Anselm was the first to consciously develop a Trinity theory involving relative identity.
Van Inwagen neither endorses this Trinity theory, nor presumes to pronounce it orthodox, and he admits that it does little to reduce the mysteriousness of the traditional language. It seems that any things which are non-identical are not the same being. Thus, van Inwagen must assume that there is absolute identity, and deny that this relation holds between the Persons. Thus, van Inwagen has not demonstrated the consistency of this version of trinitarianism.
At one point van Inwagen tells a short non-theological story whose claims, when translated into his relative identity logic, have the same forms as the Trinity propositions. The story, he argues, is clearly not self-contradictory; thus, he concludes, neither are the Trinity propositions, since they have the same logical forms.
They employ an analogy between the Christian God and material objects. Yet, we can distinguish the lump of bronze from the statue.
These cannot be identical, as they differ e. While they are numerically one physical object, they are two hylomorphic compounds, that is, two compounds of form and matter, sharing their matter. This, they hold, is a plausible solution to the problem of material constitution Rea Similarly, the Persons of the Trinity are so many selves constituted by the same stuff or something analogous to a stuff.
Father, Son, and Spirit are three quasi form-matter compounds. Craig , 79 , in a later piece, Rea holds the divine nature to be a substance i. Rea adds that this divine nature is a fundamental power which is sharable and multiply locatable.
All properties, in his view, are powers, and vice versa. Thus, this divine nature is both a power and a property, and it plays a role like that of matter in the Trinity. There would seem to be seven realities here, none of which is absolutely identical to any of the others. Four of them are properties: the divine nature d , being unbegotten u , being begotten b , and proceeding p.
Three are hylomorphic form-matter compounds: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit f, s, h —each with the property d playing the role of matter within it, and each having its own additional property respectively: u, b, and p playing the role of form within it. Each of these compounds is a divine self. The ovals can be taken to represent the three hylomorphs form-matter compounds or the three hylomorphic compounding relations which obtain among the seven realities posited.
Three of these seven f, s, h are to be counted as one god, because they are hylomorphs with only one divine nature d between them. Thus, of the seven items, three are properties u, b, p , three are substances which are hylomorphic compounds f, s, h , and one is both a property and a substance, but a simple substance, not a compound one d. Brower and Rea argue that their theory stands a better chance of being orthodox than its competitors, and point out that a part of their motivation is that leading medieval trinitarians such as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas say things which seem to require a concept of numerical sameness without identity.
See Marenbon , Brower , and the supplementary document on the history of Trinity theories, sections 3. In contrast to other relative-identity theories, this theory seems well-motivated, for its authors can point to something outside trinitarian theology which requires the controversial concept of numerical sameness without identity.
This concept, they can argue, was not concocted solely to acquit the trinitarian of inconsistency. But this strength is also its weakness, for on the level of metaphysics, much hostility to the theory is due to the fact that philosophers are heavily divided on the reality, nature, and metaphysical utility of constitution. Thus, some philosophers deny that a metaphysics of material objects should involve constitution, since strictly speaking there are no statues or pillars, for these apparent objects should be understood as mere modes of the particles that compose them.
Arguably, truths about statues and pillars supervene on truths about arrangements of particles Byerly , 82—3. Each Person is also constituted by an incommunicable attribute, begetting Father , being begotten Son , and being spirated Spirit Williams , And for him, the Persons are persons. Each Person is essentially numerically the same essence as the one divine essence, while being a numerically different Person from the other two Persons.
Thus, the account involves irreducible relations of kind-relative numerical sameness. But the divine Persons are not absolutely numerically identical to one another, and each is not absolutely numerically identical to the divine essence. This divine essence is like an Aristotelian first substance in that it exists on its own not in another and in being a concrete particular, but unlike first substances it is communicable, in other words, it can be shared by non-identical things, the divine Persons Williams , See section 5.
Unlike any other three persons, the Persons of the Trinity, because they share one divine nature, share one set of powers, and so any exercise of any divine power belongs to each of the three. In this case, Williams analyzes thinking as producing and using a token sentence in what we might call divine mentalese. For example,. Similarly, if divine Persons think using a language-like divine mentalese, then one token of this may be used by different Persons and have a different significance for each.
The idea is that a person relates to a proposition the content of his thought by means of a token sentence which he produces and uses to think. But these mental acts, given that the Persons share one set of powers, must be shared by all three of them. Yet, the thoughts thereby thought will differ. Williams rejects this as an ungrounded modern assumption.
While it employs recent thinking about indexical terms and other matters, Williams considers this account to fit well with historical theologians such as Gregory of Nyssa, Henry of Ghent, and John Duns Scotus That the persons share all mental acts does not imply that they share one mind or that there is one consciousness in the Trinity.
Rather, the access consciousness, experiential consciousness, and introspective consciousness of each Person may differ , Section 3. In a response, William Hasker objects that it seems that sometimes human beings can think without using any language. Why, then, should we suppose divine Persons to think only by means of mental token sentences?
Perhaps they can just relate directly to propositions the contents of their thoughts. He also objects that the theory wrongly counts mental acts. Is the Trinity a contradiction? While we cannot fully understand everything about the Trinity or anything else , it is possible to answer questions like these and come to a solid grasp of what it means for God to be three in one. The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. The Bible speaks of the Father as God Phil. Are these just three different ways of looking at God, or simply ways of referring to three different roles that God plays?
For example, since the Father sent the Son into the world John , He cannot be the same person as the Son. Therefore, the Holy Spirit must be distinct from the Father and the Son. In the baptism of Jesus, we see the Father speaking from heaven and the Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove as Jesus comes out of the water Mark And in John we see that although there is a close unity between them all, the Holy Spirit is also distinct from the Father and the Son.
They are different Persons, not three different ways of looking at God. The personhood of each member of the Trinity means that each Person has a distinct center of consciousness. While Jesus and the Father are both God, they are different Persons.
Thus, Jesus prayed to God the Father without praying to Himself. In fact, it is precisely the continuing dialog between the Father and the Son Matthew ; ; John ; ; ff which furnishes the best evidence that they are distinct Persons with distinct centers of consciousness. The fact that the Holy Spirit is a Person, not an impersonal force like gravity , is also shown by the fact that He speaks Hebrews , reasons Acts , thinks and understands 1 Corinthians , wills 1 Corinthians , feels Ephesians , and gives personal fellowship 2 Corinthians These are all qualities of personhood.
In addition to these texts, the others we mentioned above make clear that the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Personhood of the Son and the Father.
They are three real persons, not three roles God plays. Another serious error people have made is to think that the Father became the Son, who then became the Holy Spirit. Contrary to this, the passages we have seen imply that God always was and always will be three Persons. There was never a time when one of the Persons of the Godhead did not exist. They are all eternal. While the three members of the Trinity are distinct, this does not mean that any is inferior to the other.
Instead, they are all identical in attributes. They are equal in power, love, mercy, justice, holiness, knowledge, and all other qualities. Does the Trinity mean that God is divided into three parts? The Trinity does not divide God into three parts. The Bible is clear that all three Persons are each one hundred percent God. This would make each Person less than fully God and thus not God at all. Thus, the Son is not one-third of the being of God, He is all of the being of God. The Father is not one-third of the being of God, He is all of the being of God.
And likewise with the Holy Spirit. If each Person of the Trinity is distinct and yet fully God, then should we conclude that there is more than one God? Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! Having seen that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, that they are each fully God, and that there is nonetheless only one God, we must conclude that all three Persons are the same God. In other words, there is one God who exists as three distinct Persons.
We baptize into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Second, notice that each Person must be deity because they are all placed on the same level. In fact, would Jesus have us baptize in the name of a mere creature? Surely not. Therefore each of the Persons into whose name we are to be baptized must be deity. Third, notice that although the three divine Persons are distinct, we are baptized into their name singular , not names plural.
The three Persons are distinct, yet only constitute one name. This can only be if they share one essence. This leads us to investigate more closely a very helpful definition of the Trinity which I mentioned earlier: God is one in essence, but three in Person. Thomas Aquinas sets out a highly developed and difficult trinitarian theory Summa Contra Gentiles 4. God is also utterly simple, with no distinct parts, properties, or actions.
We may truly say, though, that God understands and wills. These divine processes are reflexive relations which are the persons of the Trinity.
The persons of the Trinity, as they share the divine essence, are related more closely than things which are merely tokens of a kind e. The persons are distinct per relationes as to their relations but not distinct per essentiam as to their essence or being. In the words of one commenter,. But how may these relations be, constitute, or somehow give rise to three divine hypostaseis when each just is the divine essence?
Aquinas holds that it does not follow—that would amount to modalism, not orthodox trinitarianism. To the preceding objection, then, Aquinas says that the alleged consequence would follow only if the persons were the same both in thing and in concept. But they are not; they are merely the same thing.
This move is puzzling. Aquinas holds that the three are not merely similar or derived from the same source, but are in some strong sense the same, but not identical i.
Christopher Hughes holds that Aquinas is simply confused, his desire for orthodoxy having led him into this and other necessary falsehoods. The interpretation of Aquinas on these points is difficult.
See sections 1 and 2. Thus, the persons are related to God somewhat as concrete things are related to the universals of which they are examples Cross , 61— Indeed, the divine nature or essence is a universal, although it is also a substance a.
How are the persons related to each other? They have the divine nature in common. This process is causal, but does not imply, Scotus holds, that the Son and Spirit are subordinate to the Father, or that they are imperfect or less divine than he Cross , —80, —8. Like Augustine, he holds that the persons are distinguished by their relational properties, but he does this on the basis of church tradition, not because he finds anything impossible in the supposition that the persons are distinguished by absolute non-relational properties.
While the relational properties of paternity, sonship, and being spirated constitute the three persons, he denies that those are their only unique properties Cross , 62—7. These properties are supposed to explain why the persons, unlike the divine essence, are not communicable Cross , Is it possible for anything to be related as Scotus thinks the members of the Trinity are to the divine essence?
But the divine essence is the only universal, he holds, which is commmunicable in this way. Scotus gives some perfect-being and other arguments to the effect that there must be two and only two productions within God, and only one unproduced producer the Father, not the divine nature in him. Since the Reformation era, many theologians and philosophers have been impatient with this sort of confident metaphysical speculation, preferring to dismiss it as learned nonsense.
However, Cross has painstakingly laid out its motivations and content. See Thom , ch. Starting in the great upheaval of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation many Christians re-examined the New Testament and rejected many later developments as incompatible with apostolic doctrine, lacking adequate basis in it, and often as contrary to reason as well.
Initially, many Reformation leaders de-emphasized the trinitarian doctrine, and seemed unsure whether or not to confine it to the same waste bin as the doctrines of papal authority and transubstantiation Williams , — See the supplementary document on unitarianism. As history played out, the practically non-trinitarian groups and some of the antitrinitarian groups evolved into trinitarian ones.
At the same time, theologians have lamented that many Christian groups are arguably functionally non-trinitarian though not antitrinitarian or nearly so in their piety and preaching. In recent theology, the Trinity has become a popular subject for speculation, and its practical relevance for worship, marriage, gender relations, religious experience, and politics, has been repeatedly asserted.
See section 2. It has fallen to Christian philosophers and philosophically aware theologians to sort out what precisely the doctrine amounts to, and to defend it against charges of inconsistency and unintelligibility. This is probably because some theologians hold the attempt to derive the doctrine from the Bible to be hopelessly naive, while other theologians, many Christian philosophers and apologists accept the common arguments see section 2.
Again, the postmodern view that there are no better or worse interpretations of texts may play a role in quenching interest among academic theologians. Distrust of councils and post-biblical religious authorities has largely evaporated, even among Protestants from historically anti-clerical and non-creedal groups.
Ecumenical movements, and anti-sectarian sentiments probably also play a role in deflecting attention from the issues, in that to many it seems perverse to attack one of the few doctrines on which all the main, dominant Christian groups are in agreement. Supplement to Trinity History of Trinitarian Doctrines 1.
Introduction 2. The Christian Bible 2. Development of Creeds 3. Medieval Theories 4. Post—Medieval Developments 1. Introduction This supplementary document discusses the history of Trinity theories. Justin and later second century Christians influenced by Platonism take over a concept of divine transcendence from Platonism, in light of which no one with even the slightest intelligence would dare to assert that the Creator of all things left his super-celestial realms to make himself visible in a little spot on earth.
Justin, Dialogue , 92 [ch. S did action A. For any x , if x does action A , x is fully divine.
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