LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY

The Historical Development of the Doctrine of Trinity: A.D. 100 - 1500

Submitted to Dr. Ken Cleaver,

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of

CHHI 520-001

History of Christianity 1

by

Samuel Japhets

November 3, 2017

Updated 10/1/2021 5:58 a10/p10

 Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................................1

Early Post-Apostolic Period: A.D. 100-140..................................................................................1

Apostolic Fathers.................................................................................................................1

The Apologists.....................................................................................................................2

Major Historical Trinitarian Thoughts.......................................................................................4

The Old Catholic Period: A.D. 170 - 325............................................................................6

The Ecumenical Period: 325-600.......................................................................................12

The Early Middle Ages – 600 – 1500............................................................................................14

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15

Bibliography..................................................................................................................................17

ii
 Introduction

Origen’s Christology which presented Jesus Christ as “co-eternal with the Father” and as

“the image of the Father” created an epistemic gap in early Trinitarian reasoning which became

the catalyst for the ensuing medieval trinitarian controversies, especially the church-wide Arian

heresy of the fourth century. Since heretical teachings and false notions of the trinity still abound

in twenty-first century Christianity, this paper can assist to trace original church understandings

of the biblical teaching on the Trinity, as well as highlight how false doctrines of the Trinity

entered mainstream Christian thinking. The goal is to, first, focus on medieval Christianity, from

A.D. 100 – A.D. 1500 as context to show where, why, and how pre-Origen trinitarianism was

constructed, followed by pivotal Origen Christology and post-Origen trinitarian developments,

noting distinctive characteristics, principal proponents, and climactic Church decisions. As a

caveat, this study is not an exhaustive investigation, rather it is an overview which seeks to

provide a brief survey of church history with special emphasis on how the church’s trinitarian

doctrine developed strictly in medieval times, A.D. 100 – 1500.

Early Post-Apostolic Period: A.D. 100-140

Prior to the fourth century church councils, the Apostolic Fathers confronted the

challenges of sustaining the unity and survival of the church, in addition to defending the

humanity of Jesus against the Gnostics and other heretical movements confused about the deity

of Jesus.

Apostolic Fathers

In early Christological formulations, early apostolic Fathers deployed technical ideas and

terms to express the relationships in the Godhead, especially that of the Son and the Father that

was pivotal at the time given disparaging attacks from Gnostics. The results depended on

1
whether the allegorical exegesis of the Alexandrian school or the theoretical typology of the

Antiochene school was adduced in the instance.1 Hence Ignatius of Antioch, in his Letter to the

Ephesians, 7, asserts that “There is only one Physician: Both carnal (physical) and spiritual, Born

and unborn, (genoita kai angenoita), God become man, True life in death; Sprung both from

Mary and from God, First subject to suffering and then incapable of it: Jesus Christ our Lord.”2

Similarly, Polycarp of Smyrna, in his Epistle to the Philippians, formulated an anti-Gnostic

Christology that reaffirmed the humanity of Christ, arguing: “To deny that Jesus Christ has come

in the flesh is to be Antichrist, to contradict the evidence of the cross is to be of the devil, and to

… (assert) that there are no such things as resurrection or judgment, is to be a first-begotten son

of Satan.”3

The Apologists

However, while the early Apostolic Fathers did not provide a precise interpretation of the

trinity, they developed formulas and languages that posited God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit in

triune relationship. While they stressed the oneness of God, the persons of Jesus Christ and the

Holy Spirit were clearly identified relative to divinity in operation. In this regard, Ferguson

observes that the Apologists more explicitly state a pre-existent Trinity of God, the Logos

(Word), and the Holy Spirit. However, it is specifically in regard to Christ as the Logos of God

that the Apologists made their most significant contribution.4 This Logos Christology of the 2nd

century Greek Apologists became the basis for later speculation on the Trinity in the doctrines of

1 J.N.D. Kelley, Early Christian Doctrines, rev. ed. (New York: Harper One, 1978), 69-78.
2 Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, eds., “The Person and Work of Christ,” in Documents of the
Christian Church, 4th ed., ed. (Oxford / New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 31.
3 David Robert Palmer, “The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians, Greek, Latin and English,” Bible
Translation, May, 2015, accessed October 27,
2017, http://bibletranslation.ws/down/Polycarp_Epistle_To_The_Philippians.pdf.
4 Everett Ferguson, Church History: From Christ to the Pre-Reformation; The Rise and Growth of the
Church in its Cultural, Intellectual, and Political Context, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 1:74.

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Justin, Athenagoras, and Theophilus.5 Justin Martyr (ca. AD 100-167) developed his doctrine of

the ‘Divine Logos’ in his Christology that the ‘Logos’ was originally a power within God, which

God spoke forth, so He could create the world. Once the ‘Logos’ emanated from God, He

became externally independent of God, yet functionally subordinate to God (the Father).6

Similarly, Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, writing to Autolycus (ca. 180) distinguished

between two types of ‘Logos’: Intelligence of God, and The Logos brought forth to create. He

was also the first to employ the term, trias (“triad”) of the Godhead.7 In summary, the leading

Greek Apologists made a personal distinction between the Father and the Son, or Logos. They

taught a form of two persons in the Godhead, the second person being subordinate to the first,

with some indication of a threefold nature in God, or a third person, especially among two later

Apologists, but they did not develop trinitarianism just yet.8

The systematic linking of the Messiah with both Greek pre-existent Logos and Jewish

pre-existent Word, Wisdom, or Spirit posited that: the Logos was immanently in God’s mind as

reason or wisdom; God spoke forth the Logos, giving separate existence to His Word; the Logos

became immanent in the world to create the universe and provide order; the Logos is the

revealed word of God to the prophets; the Logos became flesh, incarnate in Jesus Christ – source

of God’s creation and saving activity in the world.9 As the apologists explained the relationship

between the Father and the Son in Greek philosophical terms, they retained an

uncompromisingly monotheistic stance while affirming that the eternal ‘Logos’ is an extension

of the Father’s mind to create, reveal, and redeem.10 However, they lacked the technical
5 Everett Ferguson, Church History, 74.
6 J.N.D. Kelley, Early Christian Doctrines, 99-104.
7 Ibid., 99.
8 Ibid.
9 Ferguson, 75-76.
10 J.N.D. Kelley, Early Christian Doctrines, 103-4.

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vocabulary to adequately convey eternal distinctions among the divine Trinity. This triune

concept of God ignited conflicting reactions from Eastern (Antiochian - Constantinople) and

Western (Alexandrian – Roman) Christian thoughts.

Major Historical Trinitarian Thoughts

The Ebionites were Jewish Christians who denied the deity of Jesus, contending that He

was a mere man upon whom the Spirit descended at His baptism and withdrew upon the

completion of His divine mission.11 Thus, Jesus was not truly God, but simply a great prophet.

They rejected Paul’s letters and most of the Gospels except the book of Mathew. The Gnostics, a

dualistic pagan mystical philosophy that combined Oriental religion and Greek philosophy,

withstood 2nd century Christianity.12 As already noted above, prominent Gnostic exponents like

Saturninus, Basilides, and Valentinus taught that the world is composed of the competing

entities, spirit (good) and matter (evil).13 They believe that humans are good spirits caught up in

an evil materialistic world made by Jehovah, an inferior deity. The Redeemer, Christ, was not

God’s Son, rather a direct emanation from the originally supreme God. Christ has come into the

evil world to rescue humans, but Christ is not God Himself because the Supreme One cannot

identify with impure matter.14 They denied that Christ came in the flesh because being the good

emanation from God, he cannot encounter evil matter. Hence Docetism was their answer.

Docetism claims that Christ was a mere spirit being only – he seemed or appeared to have flesh,

but actually did not because he was a pure spirit that cannot encounter or mix with evil matter.15

11 David K. Bernard, A History of Christian Doctrine: The Post-Apostolic Age to the Middle Ages,
A.D.100-1500 (Hazelwood: Word Aflame Press, 1995), 1:31-42.
12 Ibid., 32.
13 Ibid., 33.
14 Ibid., 33-35.
15 David K. Bernard, A History of Christian Doctrine: The Post-Apostolic Age to the Middle Ages,
A.D.100-1500 (Hazelwood: Word Aflame Press, 1995), 1:35-42.

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Other Gnostics advocated the views of Cerinthus who separates Jesus and Christ into two

separate beings – the man Jesus, born, and Christ, the unborn pure spirit.16 Cerinthus taught that

Christ came upon Jesus at His baptism and remained with Jesus prior to His death. Because the

pure spirit, Christ, could not participate in Jesus’ death, Christ abandoned Jesus on the cross.17

Thus, these gnostic views denied the oneness of God, the Incarnation, the Atonement and many

more of the early doctrines of the church. Church writers responded firmly against the gnostic

teachings and the other threat from Marcion.

Marcion taught a mixture of Gnosticism, paganism, and Christianity in which two deities,

the Creator or Demiurge, and the Redeemer were central.18 For Marcion, the Creator is the evil

god of the Old Testament, which he rejected; the Redeemer is the good one that came to the

world as Jesus Christ – not in the flesh though, but as a spirit being only. He accepted only ten of

Paul’s writings and a small portion from the book of Luke – rejecting the rest of the New

Testament. In Marcionism, Jesus was the supreme deity and the concept of trinity was non-

existent. The Marcionites broke with mainstream Christianity around A.D. 144.19

The group founded by Montanus, a presbyter from Phrygia in Asia Minor was a

holiness / Pentecostal movement that was expelled from the church around A.D. 177 and

influenced Tertullian with their ascetic spirituality.20 Montanus was accused of claiming to be

the Paraclete of the promised Comforter in John 14 because he prophesied in the first person and

did not believe in the trinity.21

The Old Catholic Age: A.D. 170 - 325

16 Ibid., 37.
17 Ibid., 38-39.
18 J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 67-69.
19 Ibid.
20 Bernard, 40.
21 Ibid.

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 This period was characterized by theological discussion and the evolution of doctrine.

The Post-Apostolic writers had written on biblical themes, and the Greek Apologists had

engaged in some theological reflection, but it was really in the period 170-325 that theologians

emerged.22 Various writers and teachers began to develop systems of doctrinal thought,

particularly in response to certain heresies, even as the church and its leaders began to examine

doctrines of God and of the Christ to resolve outstanding issues.23

Further, this period witnessed the first explicit teaching of the doctrine of the trinity

(Tertullian, c. 210); the first mention of infant baptism (rejected by Tertullian); the construction

of the earliest known public church buildings (c. 230); the first endorsement of baptism by

sprinkling (Cyprian, c. 250); and the first Christian hermits, who paved the way for monasticism

(Anthony, 270).24 Also, Christians endured great persecution during this age, with empire-wide

persecution beginning in 250 under Emperor Decius and not finally ending until the agreement

between co-emperors Constantine and Licinius called the Edict of Milan in 313. Because of this

intense persecution, many people were martyred, and thousands of others fell away from the

church.25

In 312 the Donatist Schism occurred over the question of how to treat laity and clergy

who had apostasized but later repented.26 Major Trinitarian teachers or referents revolved around

western portion of the Roman Empire, in Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (178-200) and Hippolytus in

Asia Minor; North Africa, in Tertullian of Carthage (150 -225) and his disciple, Cyprian, bishop

of Carthage (ca. 248-258); and Alexandria Egypt, in Clement of Alexandria (150-215), and his

22 Ibid., 61-86.
23 Ibid., 63.
24 Ibid., 62.
25 Ibid., 65-7.
26 Bernard, 69-71.

6
disciple Origen (185 – 254). Tertullian and Origen will be the focus on trinitarian basis in this

period.27

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (178-200)

A disciple of Polycarp and author of major works including Against Heresies and

Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, Irenaeus taught that God is one and that Jesus Christ

is truly God and truly man.28 He also taught a threefold revelation of God as Father, Son (Word),

and Holy Spirit (Wisdom). In keeping with the thinking of the Greek Apologists, Irenaeus

equated the Son with the Word (Logos) in terminology.29 He adopted Justin’s interpretation of

several Old Testament verses in which God addressed the Word, and like Theophilus, he said

that in Genesis 2:26 God spoke to His Word and Wisdom, or the Son and Spirit (the two “hands”

of the Father.30 Irenaeus is said to have believed in an economic (oikonomia) trinity - making

trinitarian distinctions with respect to God’s operations in the world rather than His essence.31

Tertullian of Carthage (150-225)

In the third century, the first major Latin theologian, Quintus Septimus Florens

Tertullian (ca. 160 – ca. 225), a professor of theology in Carthage, North Africa, was the first to

adduce the terms: “trinitas” (trinity) with regard to the ‘Godhead’; ‘tres personae,’ (three

persons) in description of each member of the Godhead (a diversity principle); and una

substantia (one substance) to explain the shared essential qualities of the Godhead.32 According

27 Ibid., 70.
28 Bradley G. Green, ed., Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy: Engaging with Early and Medieval Theologians
(Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 15-60.
29 Ibid., 41-44.
30 Ibid., 44.
31 Ibid., 45-46.
32 Green., 81-82.

7
to Khalid Anatolios, in the same period, Hippolytus (ca. 170-ca. 236), and Novatian (mid-third

century) were in concurrence with Tertullian in opposing doctrines that insist on the radical

singularity of God and that reduce the distinctions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to

modes of appearance or activity [Sabellianism and such like].33

To Tertullian, the unity of God must be interpreted through the “trinitarian “economy””

terminologically differentiable “in terms of a monotheistic trinitarianism: Father, Son, and Spirit

that “are one in “substance,” “condition” and “power” (substantia, status, potestas) while three

in “degree,” “form,” and “aspect” (gradus, forma, species)”34 He compared the relationship of

the Father and the Son to that between the sun and rays from the sun. If we look merely at the

rays we can call them the sun, but when we actually think of the sun itself we would not call the

rays the sun. Similarly, if we think only of the second person in the Godhead, we can call Him

God, but when we think of both the Father and Son together, the Father is the true God and the

Son is in a secondary position.35

In teaching that the second divine person had a beginning in time and that this person was

subordinate to the Father, he followed the Greek Apologists.36 However, Tertullian went beyond

them in clearly identifying the Holy Spirit as a third divine person and in emphasizing the

trinitarian nature of God.37 He did not elaborate on his description of the third person, but he

regarded the Spirit as emerging from the Father, remaining subordinate to the Father, and also

being subordinate to the Son.38 He did speak of the three persons as sharing the one divine

33 Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine (Grand

Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 16.
34 Ibid., 81-7.
35 David K. Bernard, A History of Christian Doctrine: The Post-Apostolic Age to the Middle Ages,
A.D.100-1500 (Hazelwood: Word Aflame Press, 1995), 1:61-86.
36 Bernard., 85.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid., 86.

8
substance, coessentiality or consubstantiality, even though at this time, Tertullian’s notions had

not evolved to include coeternity and coequality in the divine relationships.39

Post-Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Novatian, the trinitarian model would be challenged by

complications of Monarchianism in Sabellius and Paul of Samosata who adduced the concept of

God as a radically singular being and of Son and Holy Spirit as merely modes of divine

operation. The church, especially in the West, grappled with articulating a Christian monotheistic

doctrine of God that rejects a ‘Sabellian’ modalistic interpretation of the unity of the Godhead as

well as its opposite in dynamic adoptionistic Monarchianism.

Clement of Alexandria

He followed in the tradition of the Greek Apologists, relied heavily upon Greek

terminology, philosophy, and speculation – with strong emphasis on the doctrine of the Logos.

His major works are The Exhortation to the Heathen (for evangelism), The Instructor (for

converts), and The Miscellanies.40

In Clement’s trinitarian construct, God the Father is absolutely transcendent, ineffable

and incomprehensible; He is unity, but beyond unity, and transcending the monad, and yet

embraces all reality.41 The Father can be known only through His Word (Logos), or Son, who is

His image and inseparable from Him, His mind or rationality. Like the Nous of mid-Platonism

and of Neo-Platonism, the Word is at once unity and plurality, comprising in Himself the

Father’s ideas, and also the active forces by which He animates the world of creatures.42 His

generation from the Father is without beginning (the Father is not without His Son; for along

with being Father, He is Father of the Son); and He is essentially one with Him, since the Father

39 Ibid.
40 J.N.D. Kelly, 153.
41 J.N.D. Kelley, Early Christian Doctrines, rev. ed. (New York: Harper One, 1978), 127.
42 Ibid.

9
is in Him and He in the Father.43 The Spirit, thirdly, is the Light issuing from the Word, which,

divided without any real division, illuminates the faithful; He is also the power of the Word

which pervades the world and attracts men to God.44

Thus, pursuant to his Platonic Christian theism, Clement presents a graded hierarchy of a

triune but one God in which the Son is subordinated to the Father, and the Spirit subordinated to

the Son.45 Notwithstanding, no inequality seems to be implied, since Clement and Origen set out

to develop an orthodox Gnosticism in place of its heretical forms pervading Alexandria through

the Gnostic teachers – Basilides, Carpocrates, and Valentinus.46 Similarly, J.N.D. Kelly asserts

that Clement and Origen were profoundly enamored to understand the triune Godhead in the

light of middle Platonism fashionable in Alexandria in the time.47 But it is Origen’s radical

popularization of the same kind of Clementine trinitarianism that would lay the foundation for

the most notable Christian trinitarian controversies.

Origen (ca. 185- ca. 254)

Origen was born into a Christian family in Alexandria in 185 A.D. His father Leonides

was martyred under Roman emperor, Septimus Severus (202-203), but Origen was saved from

being killed because his mother hid his clothes to stop him from wandering out of the house.48

Following Greek Apologists and seeking to blend Greek thought with Christianity, Origen

emphasized reason over faith. He was a prolific writer whose major extant works are On First

Principles, Against Celsius, and Commentaries.49 Like Tertullian before him, Origen taught that
43 J.N.D. Kelly, 127.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Ferguson, 128.
47 Kelly, 127.
48 Ferguson, 131-32.
49 Green, Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy, 135-37.

10
God is a trinity of persons (Greek, hypostases) and that the Holy Spirit is a third divine person.

While he sometimes spoke of the members of the trinity as being equal, he actually subordinated

the second person to the first and the third person to the first and second.50 Origen introduced

two related concepts that were crucial to the progressive formulation of trinitarianism and its

controversies: the doctrine of the eternal Son and the doctrine of the eternal generation of the

Son.51

The Apologists and Tertullian had identified Father and Son as two persons, but they

taught that the Son was begotten at a certain time before creation. Origen reasoned that if the Son

is truly God, He must be eternal, coeternal with the Father.52 Consequently, the Son’s begetting

could not refer to a point in time, but to an eternal process, to an eternal relationship with the

Father. There was never a time when He was not. He has always been, and is always being,

begotten (generated) by the Father.53 Additionally, Origen also moved towards the later

trinitarian doctrine of coequality of the Father and the Son. He established equality in time, but

He still spoke of the Son as deriving His substance from the Father, indicating a subordination of

origin or existence.54 Some statements of Origen seem to indicate that the two persons are of the

same substance, but to avoid modalism he made a difference. For example, he said the Son “is a

separate being and has a separate essence of His own,” is “a second God,” was “created” by the

Father, is “inferior” to the Father, and is not “the Most High God.”55 Interestingly, at the Council

50 Ibid., 137.
51 Bernard, A History of Christian Doctrine, 83-84
52 Ibid., 84.
53 Bernard., 84-85.
54 Ibid., 86.
55 Green, Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy, 136-37.

11
of Nicaea, both those who said the Son was inferior to the Father and those who said the Son was

equal to the Father, quoted Origen in support of their positions.56

The Ecumenical Age: 325-600

There were seven major church councils from A.D. 325 – 787; Constantine favors

Christianity with Edict of Milan (313), converts to Christianity (324), convenes the first

ecumenical Council in 325 to resolve the Arian controversy over the deity of Jesus Christ.57

According to Robert C. Walton, 325 – 787 featured the following major events that implicates

trinitarianism:

Nicaea I, 325, convened by Constantine I, near the imperial residence at Nicomedia. It

affirmed that Christ is God and that the Father and the Son are of the same substance,

condemning the Arian view that Christ is a lesser divine being.58 By implication it partially

endorsed the trinitarian views of Athanasius, spokesman of the winning party, who taught that

the Father and Son were distinct but equal persons in the Godhead.59Under the influence of

Athanasius, the Council of Nicaea rejected Arianism. It declared that the Father and the Son are

of the same substance, making them equal. Based in part on the theology of Augustine and

produced sometime in the fifth to eighth centuries, the Athanasian Creed put in definitive form

the doctrine of the victors of Nicaea and Constantinople. It declared the coequality, co-eternity,

and consubstantiality of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.60

Constantinople I, 381, summoned by Theodosius I, condemned Apollinarianism, the view

that Christ’s humanity was incomplete, and it affirmed the deity and distinct personality of the

56 Ibid., 137.
57 Walton, Church History, 22.
58 Bernard, 98-99.
59 Ibid., 98.
60 Ibid.

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Holy Spirit. Thus, it gave final approval to the Athanasian, Cappadocian doctrine of the trinity

(influenced by Basil, his younger brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and close friend, Gregory of

Nazianzus)61: the belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three coequal, coeternal,

consubstantial persons in one Godhead.62

Ephesus, 431 - called by Theodosius II and dominated by Cyril of Alexandria,

condemned the views of Nestorius, concluding that his emphasis on the two natures of Christ

wrongly divided Christ into two persons.63 Chalcedon, 451, was held near Constantinople.64

Summoned by the Eastern emperor Marcian at the prompting of Pope Leo I, this council

formulated what became the orthodox expression of Christology: Christ has two natures, divine

and human, but is only one person. It condemned both Nestorius and Eutyches.65

Constantinople II, 553, convened by Justinian, condemned the view that Christ had only

one nature (monophysitism).66 Constantinople III, 680, under Constantine Progonatus,

condemned the doctrine that Christ had only one will (Monothelitism). Nicaea II, 787, under

Empress Irene, endorsed the worship of images. Technically, it said the worship given to images

is honor but not devotion.67

The Early Middle Ages: 600 – 1500

While early theologians mostly became bishops became 100 – 600 and formulated church

doctrines through ecumenical councils between 300-500, from 600 to 1500 most theologians

were monks, especially in the West, and devoted themselves to the preservation of the decided

61 Green, Shapers of Christian Orthodoxy, 190-230.

62 Ibid., 99.
63 Walton., 24-25.
64 Ibid., 24.
65 Bernard., 99.
66 Ibid., 100.
67 Ibid.

13
doctrines from earlier centuries.68 The Adoptionism controversy rose in Spanish churches,

reminiscent of Nestorianism. They taught that Christ is the eternal Son according to His deity,

but as a human He is an adopted Son. His human Sonship was the result of an adoptive act by

God, perhaps at His conception, birth, or baptism.69 Charlemagne condemned the doctrine. Next

to implicate the trinity was the filioque controversy that considered whether the Holy Spirit

proceeds from the Father only or from the Father and “from the Son” (filioque).70 As taught in

the East, orthodox trinitarianism views the Son as begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit

proceeds from the Father in coequal and coeternal relationship with little hints of subordination

(the Father being the first among equals).71 The West holds that the Spirit proceeds from both

the Father and the Son per John 14:26; 15:26. This teaching was endorsed by both Charlemagne

and the Synod of Toledo, 589. The East rejects the procession of the Spirit from the Son as in

violation of original Nicaea trinity and minimizes the dignity of the Spirit.72 The West counters

that it creates a proper balance of relationship in the Godhead. This results in East-West split of

the church in 1054 with the Western Pope and Eastern Patriarch issuing mutual anathemas and

excommunications.73 The history of the church between 1100 to 1500 revolved around church

crusades against Islamic conquests in the Middle East, North Africa, Southern, Eastern and

Western Europe – with no major trinitarian doctrinal controversies.74

Conclusion
68 Ibid., 251-54.
69 Ibid., 252.
70 Ibid.
71 Bernard, History of Christian Doctrine, 255-56.
72 Ferguson, 325.
73 Ibid., 399-401.
74 Ibid.

14
 In Origen’s Christology, both the Arian view of the Son as inferior to the Father and the

orthodox view of the Son as equal to the Father, finds a solid stake in support of their positions

Thus indicating that the whole concept of the trinity is one fraught with difficulties and

controversies throughout church history, yet it emerged as a touchstone of truth and non-

negotiable article of faith in Christian orthodoxy. Notwithstanding, there are so much confusion

around this concept even in the twenty-first century - some think the doctrine of the trinity means

Christianity believes in three Gods, a form of tritheism (categorically rejected by the Church

historically), while others see it as the church’s retreat into contradiction.

To the contrary, this paper stands for the proposition that the concept of the trinity does

not violate the law of logical non-contradiction, which states that “A cannot be non-A at the

same time and in the same relationship.” This is established in that the statement of faith on the

trinity logically claims that God is one in “essence” and “three in persons” – that is, He is one in

A, and three in B. Thus, there is no logical contradiction because he is not one in A and three in

A, or one in B and three in B. Hence it is a logically non-contradictory, but mysterious claim.

15
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