The Trinity Doctrine

Nearly all churches of Christendom teach that God is a Trinity. The Catholic Encyclopedia calls the Trinity teaching “the central doctrine of the Christian religion,” defining it this way:

“In the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: ‘the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God.’ . . . The Persons are co-eternal and co-equal: all alike are uncreated and omnipotent.”⁠¹

Anathemas Pronounced on Opposers

In 325 C.E., a council of bishops in Nicea in Asia Minor formulated a creed that declared the Son of God to be “true God” just as the Father was “true God.” Part of that creed stated:

“But as for those who say, There was [a time] when [the Son] was not, and, Before being born He was not, and that He came into existence out of nothing, or who assert that the Son of God is of a different hypostasis or substance, or is created, or is subject to alteration or change​—these the Catholic Church anathematizes.”⁠³

Thus, anyone who believed that the Son of God was not coeternal with the Father or that the Son was created was consigned to everlasting damnation. One can imagine the pressure to conform that this put on the mass of ordinary believers.

In the year 381 C.E., another council met in Constantinople and declared that the holy spirit should be worshiped and glorified just as the Father and Son were. One year later, in 382 C.E., another synod met in Constantinople and affirmed the full divinity of the holy spirit.⁠⁴ That same year, before a council in Rome, Pope Damasus presented a collection of teachings to be condemned by the church. The document, called the Tome of Damasus, included the following statements:

“If anyone denies that the Father is eternal, that the Son is eternal, and that the Holy Spirit is eternal: he is a heretic.”

“If anyone denies that the Son of God is true God, just as the Father is true God, having all power, knowing all things, and equal to the Father: he is a heretic.”

“If anyone denies that the Holy Spirit . . . is true God . . . has all power and knows all things, . . . he is a heretic.”

“If anyone denies that the three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are true persons, equal, eternal, containing all things visible and invisible, that they are omnipotent, . . . he is a heretic.”

“If anyone says that [the Son who was] made flesh was not in heaven with the Father while he was on earth: he is a heretic.”

“If anyone, while saying that the Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, . . . does not say that they are one God, . . . he is a heretic.”⁠⁵

The Jesuit scholars who translated the foregoing from Latin added the comment: “Pope St. Celestine I (422-32) apparently considered these canons law; they may be considered definitions of faith.”⁠⁶ And scholar Edmund J. Fortman asserts that the tome represents “sound and solid trinitarian doctrine.”⁠⁷

If you are a member of a church that accepts the Trinity teaching, do these statements define your faith? And did you realize that to believe in the Trinity doctrine as taught by the churches requires you to believe that Jesus was in heaven while he was on earth? This teaching is similar to what fourth-century churchman Athanasius stated in his book On the Incarnation:

“The Word [Jesus] was not hedged in by His body, nor did His presence in the body prevent His being present elsewhere as well. When He moved His body He did not cease also to direct the universe by His Mind and might. . . . He is still Source of life to all the universe, present in every part of it, yet outside the whole.”⁠⁸