by alecto » March 15th, 2006, 4:22 pm
There is a lot of Biblical evidence for unity of Christ and God, the chief of which is the beginning of the Gospel of John. But there is no evidence for bringing the Holy Spirit in on equal basis. I had heard when I was much younger that the Trinity was invented to rationalize worship of the Holy Spirit along with God and Christ in a world where at the same time Christians were arguing to polytheists that there was only one God, but I have never found written evidence for this by any ancient authors. In fact, I have read little that motivates belief in the Trinity, i.e. why this became so big an issue that bishops debated about it, though there are many existing letters arguing both points of view. Most of these ignore the strong Christ-Father unity evidence in the Bible because it always leaves the Holy Spirit out. Presumably they didn't want to provide their opponents with such an immediate chance for a reposte. For the most part, the Trinity is a kind of post-Biblical theory used to explain how the Divine Powers all relate to each other.
I have always wondered why some of the protestant churches (particularly the Baptists) have a doctrine of the Trinity, since it is non-Biblical, and they are always saying the Bible, not Catholic tradition, is the only source of spiritual truth. The Trinity was one of the first Roman Catholic traditions, meaning traditions specifically of Romans not shared necessarily by non-Roman Christians. For example, many Goths were Arians (followers of the doctrine of the Arius of Alexandria, who believed that Christ was the literal son of God, and therefore not the same as God) and it may be that this external pressure forced the bishops at Nicea to adopt a more Trinitarian position, though the idea of Trinity predates Arius.
It is apparently not true, as some say, that Constantine forced the council to adopt any part of the Creed, though he did ask for a single resolution partly for political reasons. He is supposed to have said: "it is thought to be not only indecorous, but altogether unlawful, that so numerous a people of God should be governed and directed at your pleasure, while you are thus emulously contending with each other, and quarrelling about small and very trifling matters." (This is from an Internet source without attribution, so I can't vouch for it.)
On another note, it is amazing how useful a little language knowledge can be. For example, messiah = Khristos (Christ) = anointed. They're all translations of each other. Adam has pointed out that amen = "truly". It is related to emunah, which in Hebrew is "good faith" or "steadfastness". Because Paul glosses this against pistis, which we translate as "faith", we can get another angle on what Paul means by faith.
"Son of Man" is God's title for Ezekiel. It first appears in Eze 1:28-2:3 after the fabulous vision of the Chariot of God:
"As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake. And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me. And he said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me, even unto this very day."
Sentio ergo est.
