You’re right. It wasn’t neat. Greek philosophy provided the ready made vocabulary to express what they wanted to express. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one but different. I know! They’re distinct persons but of the same substance!
In the Eucharist the bread and wine always look the same so it must their substance that changed!
The Trinity is not meant to make sense. It’s a Divine Mystery. Like a Zen Koan the point is not to explain – every attempt to explain the Trinity becomes a heresy – but to shock your mind to a higher, non-rational level of perception. Try meditating on the Trinity. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s “true”. Another mystery is why it took me becoming an atheist to figure this out.
First off, fascinating discussion, much appreciated.
Porphyry said:
I think orthodoxy emerged as little more than the both/and solution to the debate between Sabellianism and Subordinationism (each of which had formidable scriptural support).
Porphyry, I’d love to hear more on this as it certainly piqued my curiosity.
I’d really like to read a book that deals with the issue from a strictly scholarly perspective that does not attempt to put the rival positions in their place, in other words, a book not written by a Trinitarian. I take it that there were many perspectives from the beginning.
Robert said:
the mumbo-jumbo gobbledy-gook of my so-called religious superiors
We should expect nothing more than such from our religious superiors.
Freak me out, but The two Karls (Barth & Rahner) were card-carrying modalists! But perhaps not heretical Sabellians insofar as they did not profess modalism as a temporal succession of the modes in which God expressed himself in the spatio-temporal world of creation.
Very interesting! I’ll see what I can find about their ideas.
I suppose it must be a more commonly held view than I thought.
I remember having lunch with one of my profs in the student cafeteria, and we were talking about my Oneness background. Come to find out, he as a Baptist, had a similar view of God.
Robert, it makes perfect sense. My own experience with Trinitarian theology (and Christology too, in its own way) was starting by thinking that these minds had really worked out what all these formulae meant at some deep level, and I was just a bit too slow to grok it. As time went on, I got ever more convinced that they really hadn’t, and that there was no more there than some rules about what it is permissible to say.
In some sense, it is as though the doctrines of the Trinity are some formulae of symbolic logic, in which variables are related to each other but never defined.
As long as you didn’t look too hard or press the hard questions, it all looked rigorous. But when you start pressing those hard questions, you always come up empty: It’s a mystery, you can’t understand it.
BJH: I’d love to hear more on this as it certainly piqued my curiosity.
Could you specify which part of it piqued your curiosity? It is the sort of casual comment that could quickly turn into a book if one took it seriously.
Could you specify which part of it piqued your curiosity? It is the sort of casual comment that could quickly turn into a book if one took it seriously.
To be honest, all of it – the formidable scriptural support of Sabellianism and Subordinationism as well as how the orthodox position reconciled them.
Well, for Sabellians the most direct support would be things in John, like, Jn 10:30, “The Father and I are one,” or Jn 8:58, “before Abraham was, I am,” Jn 14:9, “Who sees me sees the Father,” or even Jn 1:1, “and the Word was God”. But there were lots of other passages that could bear a Sabellian reading, like Col. 2:9 “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” or the Christ hymn in Philippians or Heb 1:3.
For Subordinationists, you had passages like Jn 14:28, “The Father is greater than I,” Mk 13:32, Mk 10:18, but also things like 1 Cor 11:3, or anywhere that Jesus prays to the Father.
Orthodoxy reconciles them by taking from the Sabellians that Son is God and is the same one God that the Father is. From the Subordinationists it takes that the Father and the Son are distinct–the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. But it also distinguishes: The Subordinationists are right that the Son is less than the Father, but only considered in his human nature.
You might put it this way: all three camps agreed that there was only one really truly fully divine God. The Subordinationsts insisted the Father was that God and the Son was distinct from the Father (by implication not that God). The Sabellians insisted Jesus was that God (and therefore he was the same one as the Father). The orthodox said it is both: The Son is both distinct from the Father and also fully that one true real God.
I should perhaps clarify that when I say ‘mumbo-jumbo gobbledy-gook, I mean that with a tone of very reverential respect. Seriously. There’s a profound mystery there that still fascinates me, perhaps because it cannot be defined. Even by those religious superiors with feet of clay.
Thanks for clarifying it; I definitely read it differently!
As for feet of clay, it is something we all have. It brings to mind that wonderful movie of Carol Reed’s ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Not just mystical in a contemplative sense of a koan, but in a much more symbolic sociological sense. What was going on in the lives of the theologians and their communities that made this so meaningful to them. Why were they passionate about their differences
I think just believing that you are correct and the other guy is wrong is enough to explain a knock-down-drag-out fight. And once you have a fight it is easy for it to turn personal. Just look at the spats we have here on the forum. People will fight over anything.
Adding religious implications only heightens the stakes; e.g., the orthodox, during the Arian controversy, were concerned that the Eucharist could not divinize them if he whose body they received was himself a mere creature, however exulted.
what is it that unites a Muslamic modalist like Rahner with a Moltmannian tritheist liberation theologians seeking God in the struggle of their peoples against oppression?
I’m not sufficiently familiar with this unity to offer anything intelligent as a response. I would say that they seem to share some common ground in wanting the Trinity to have practical implications and a distaste for the scholastic systematization that leaves it a pure theory.
What is the meaning today in my life and relationships? Can I only genuinely respect the differences between us of those with whom I am open to being in a genuine relationship?
On the one hand, I can see how the trinity could be a fruitful seedbed for discussions of person-hood and relationality, and why, historically, it would be an important locus of such reflections. But given that I don’t feel bound by the doctrinal constraints, I don’t see why it should privilege that artificial framework over simply considering the relevant questions in their own right.
THE GODHEAD
The Nicene Creed became the central doctrine after the fourth century.
It Came To Pass by four centuries of subsequent descriptions of the Godhead disagreeing with every prior description of the Godhead.
The Roman Empire considered the Holy Trinity idea to be a more useful structure of government that would eventually replace paganism and Divine Emperors within itself.
THE INCARNATION
The Incarnation is found in John 1. The Grammar of Dionysios Thrax defines λογος as a Sentence. λεξις is a word. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
There are two kinds of matter: Spiritual and Flesh. The Sentence of Spiritual matter became Flesh of matter. The Sentence became Flesh. Hence the old English saying; would you like to come up here and say a word? (being invited to make a public statement that is obviously going to be longer than one single literal word.)
LIFE EVERLASTING & GRACE
That is all stated in the Nicene Creed. No questions asked and not even a syllable was to be added into the Creed afterwards, but it did as was called The Filoque which caused the schism between the Greek/Orthodox and Latin/Catholics.
The end. 🤷♂️
Porphyry said
Greek philosophy was used to conceptualize it. Substance, essence, etc.
Maybe I need to reexamine this now that I’m not committed to the orthodox history of the doctrine, but it seems to me the situation wasn’t so neat.
I think orthodoxy emerged as little more than the both/and solution to the debate between Sabellianism and Subordinationism (each of which had formidable scriptural support).
It wasn’t initially neat, well-defined terms of Greek philosophy being used to develop the doctrine in the first place. Terms like ousia and hypostasis were frustratingly vague, bearing different significance in different contexts, and part of the history of the doctrine was figuring out what the formulae meant once they had been adopted. Indeed, I suspect it was precisely the fact that such terms were vague that let the Church settle on an orthodox formulation early.
Take Nicea: The homoousioin had ’til then been a Sabellian byword, indeed it had recently been specifically condemned. Yet Nicea adopts it as the touchstone of orthodoxy.
I think the orthodox found formulae they could endorse, in part by using vague or ill-defined language. Then they had to do what they could over the following centuries to explain what those formulae actually meant.
If you read Athanasius–for example–how much time does he spend discussing the metaphysics of the Greek philosophers? By contrast how much time does he spend talking about everyday images like the spring, the stream, and water that flows through them, or the relation of the flame to its light? How much time does he spend walking through the passages of Scripture showing that the Father, the Son, and the HS are each divine? In fact, I’m not sure I can think of anywhere that Athanasius explicitly discusses Greek philosophy, aside from his Contra Gentes where he criticizes pagan philosophy.
1. The Divine Manifesto: The Lampstand vs. The Sub-Stack
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ laid down a crystalline, physical manifesto of how truth operates in the material world:
“Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men…” (Matthew 5:15-16)
When the original Greek text speaks of putting a candle “under” a bushel, it uses the phrase hypo ton modion. In the Latin and Western transmissions, this structural placement became sub modio. The linguistic irony is absolute: today’s religious institutions and mainstream spiritual salesmen do exactly what Christ forbade—they take the physical, literal light of the historical text and bury it under a SUB-stack of corporate paywalls, political compromises, and theological systems designed to preserve their own administrative monopolies.
Antioch was the true “city on a hill” because its theological school—anchored by historical realists like Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and John Chrysostom—refused to hide the text under an imperial table. They treated the Logos not as a philosophical riddle to be solved by state elites, but as a gritty, historical, and physical reality. Alexandria, conversely, became the birthplace of the theological fog. They realized that a literal, plain text is dangerous to centralized power. If the common people can read a text grammatically and understand it with common sense, the elite loses its job. Therefore, Alexandria turned the text into a playground of abstract allegories, hiding the light under a SUB-stack of mystical codes that only the ruling bishops had the authority to decipher.
2. The Mechanics of the Fraud: Alexander, Athanasius, and the Rigged Matrix
The historical narrative fed to believers is that the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) was a flawless, divine gathering that saved the faith. This is pure imperial propaganda. The fire was ignited by Alexander of Alexandria, a classic administrative bureaucrat who became bishop in 313 AD. Alexander’s primary goal was not scriptural truth, but total hegemony over the wealthy Egyptian territory.
His monopoly was threatened by Arius, a highly educated, ascetic priest running the parish of Baucalis. Arius committed the ultimate crime against the elite: he took his theology directly to the people. He translated his scriptural understandings into simple songs that dockworkers, fishermen, and market women sang in the streets. Arius’s theology was simple, literal, and anchored in the words of Christ Himself: “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28). This was the relational truth of subordination, which perfectly aligned with the Apostle Paul’s declaration in 1 Corinthians 15:28 that at the ultimate end of history, the Son Himself will be subjected to the Father, so that God may be all in all.
Alexander realized that this literal, text-based realism left no room for an elite episcopal gatekeeper. He did not engage Arius in an open, grammatical debate. Instead, he deployed raw administrative muscle:
- The Rigged Synod (320 AD): Alexander gathered 100 Egyptian bishops who were financially dependent on his treasury and used them to defrock and excommunicate Arius.
Porphyry said Adding religious implications only heightens the stakes; e.g., the orthodox, during the Arian controversy, were concerned that the Eucharist could not divinize them if he whose body they received was himself a mere creature, however exulted.
- The Circular Deceptions: He sent letters throughout the empire, deliberately perverting Arius’s words, claiming Arius made Christ a “pagan god” or a “mere man”—things Arius never wrote.
- The Imperial Pact: When Emperor Constantine stepped in, desiring a uniform religion to act as a political glue for his fracturing empire, Alexander and his young deacon, Athanasius, gave him the ultimate theological weapon.
At Nicaea, this Alexandrian faction forced the non-biblical, highly abstract philosophical term “consubstantial” (homoousios) into the Creed. It was a word completely absent from Holy Scripture, alien to the majority of Eastern bishops, and completely unreadable to the common man. Constantine drew his sword, threatening immediate exile to anyone who refused to sign Alexander’s formula, and ordered Arius’s books to be burned under penalty of death.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Porphyry said
Well, for Sabellians the most direct support would be things in John, like, Jn 10:30, “The Father and I are one,” or Jn 8:58, “before Abraham was, I am,” Jn 14:9, “Who sees me sees the Father,” or even Jn 1:1, “and the Word was God”. But there were lots of other passages that could bear a Sabellian reading, like Col. 2:9 “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” or the Christ hymn in Philippians or Heb 1:3.
For Subordinationists, you had passages like Jn 14:28, “The Father is greater than I,” Mk 13:32, Mk 10:18, but also things like 1 Cor 11:3, or anywhere that Jesus prays to the Father.
Orthodoxy reconciles them by taking from the Sabellians that Son is God and is the same one God that the Father is. From the Subordinationists it takes that the Father and the Son are distinct–the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father. But it also distinguishes: The Subordinationists are right that the Son is less than the Father, but only considered in his human nature.
You might put it this way: all three camps agreed that there was only one really truly fully divine God. The Subordinationsts insisted the Father was that God and the Son was distinct from the Father (by implication not that God). The Sabellians insisted Jesus was that God (and therefore he was the same one as the Father). The orthodox said it is both: The Son is both distinct from the Father and also fully that one true real God.
- The Monarchia of the Father: To be a true biblical subordinationist means holding fast to the absolute Monarchia of the Father. The Father is the sole Cause, the Source, and the ARCHE (The Beginning) of everything, both visible and invisible.
- The Words of the Savior: I am a subordinationist because I actually believe the literal, unadulterated words of Christ in the Gospels, which the philosophical innovators try to explain away:
- John 14:28: “The Father is greater than I.”
- John 5:19: “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do.” [** you do not have permission to see this link **]
- Rejecting the Metaphysical Lab: Western academics and Alexandrian systematizers think ‘Orthodoxy’ means trapping God in a philosophical pharmacy, using terms like substantia to bind the Living Spirit to the laws of human logic. They think that if the Son is distinct and subordinate in role to the Father, He must be an inferior creature. [** you do not have permission to see this link **]
Stephen said
The Trinity is not meant to make sense. It’s a Divine Mystery. Like a Zen Koan the point is not to explain – every attempt to explain the Trinity becomes a heresy – but to shock your mind to a higher, non-rational level of perception. Try meditating on the Trinity. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s “true”. Another mystery is why it took me becoming an atheist to figure this out.
Whipplebob said
I have been listening to a lecture series “The History of Christian Theology. I am struck by arguments made during the seven great Councils begining with Nicea in 325 CE. It seems to me that the fundamental doctrines of orthodoxy were presented by a few bishops, and then agreed-upon by the other attending bishops at these council. The first council at Nicea was called by emperor Constantine (all of the councils were called by emperors) and resulted in resolution of the Arian issue. Arias had been preaching that although Jesus was God, he was a lesser entity than the eternal God of creation. As I understand it, the council at Nicea agreed that the Godhead was a Trinity of eternity and that though three hypostases, was indeed a single essence. This is the notion of the trinity that establishes God the father, God, the son, and God, the Holy Spirit. Subsequently other councils were called to resolve issues within evolving Christian orthodoxy. The council at Ephesus in around 431CE resolved an issue regarding the incarnation of God in flesh. Reading the arguments of bishop Cyril regarding the incarnation is very reminiscent to me of the complexity, and imaginative cognition of the gnostic aeons emanations story. All in all the arguments substantiating fundamental doctrines of Christianity, strikes me as mythological as anything I have ever encountered. I present this to this forum for any input, thoughts, or discussion that members here may have.
I am so sad ppl like you show up, and disappear, and then I have to deal with those I have less in common…
@Stephen
@Porphyry
I don’t think the Trinity doctrine is crucial in this topic. I am aware it is mentioned, but the point is this:
The council at Ephesus in around 431CE resolved an issue regarding the incarnation of God in flesh.
The Verdict of the Imperial Machinery
Nestorius wrote frantic letters and manifestos, shouting that he was using the word hypostasis in its traditional, objective sense to mean concrete nature, and that the Person (Prosopon) remained strictly ONE.
But the imperial and ecclesiastical machinery at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) deliberately ignored his vocabulary. The Alexandrian faction locked the doors of the Council before the Antiochene delegation could even arrive, canonized Cyril’s malicious translation, and retroactively branded Nestorius a heretic. The supreme irony of this historical crime is that Nestorius was exiled for defending the exact textual realism that the Council of Chalcedon would formally adopt twenty years later in 451 AD.
The Anatomy of the Linguistic Theft
The essence of this theological and linguistic fraud is clear: Antioch and Nestorius used the word Prosopon for Person (maintaining that Christ is ONE Prosopon), while using the word Hypostasis in its original, historical sense for concrete reality of nature (two hypostases = two real natures, Divine and human).
Cyril and the imperial court consciously took the word Hypostasis, altered its definition, and forced it to mean Person. They then maliciously translated Nestorius’s formula of “two hypostases” (two natures) into “two persons” to fabricate an accusation of a schizophrenic Christ and send him into exile. This stands as a textbook example of language manipulation in the service of imperial statecraft. It is the ultimate proof of how the light of the text was buried under an artificial, political SUB-stack of shifting definitions.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
p.s. maybe we need more to explain, I am aware of it…
p.p.s. ppl. pls, leave the Trinity doctrine aside, it is a separate subject – topic, and has nothing to do with this matter.., wei should discuss Trinity separately, in the separate topic.. let’s say I am wrong, but Trinity doctrine is not crucial here, anyway., at least not directly…
Stephen said
Well perhaps you do indeed dwell on an exalted plane of perception but your analogy with the Hindu conception of the Trimurti is interesting – and revealing. But better to ask questions than assume.
Are you a Tritheist? Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are not “one” ontologically.
yes they are, and the name of that 1 is BRAhMAN
Brahman manifests with attributes (Saguna Brahman) through three cosmic roles. [** you do not have permission to see this link **]
Aspect of the Trimurti [** you do not have permission to see this link **] Cosmic Role Representation of Brahman’s Power Brahma The Creator Brahman’s ability to bring the universe into existence. Vishnu The Preserver Brahman’s ability to sustain, balance, and maintain life. Shiva (Mahesh) The Destroyer Brahman’s power to dissolve the universe to allow for renewal.
Short version? Bad example.
maybe theologically, but logically is a perfects example, although I am not brahmanist
Sooo…if your conception of the Trinity is other than Nicene Trinitarianism then you should describe it. Those of us who are “blind to the simple, inherent structure of existence” are fortunate to have your wisdom available.
Trinity was not the question, you are missing the point [being deceived with some anti-trinitarian sect[s]. I forgot theirs names at this moment], only because you’re pre learned with some kind of prejustices. Protestants deceived you it’s all about Trinity, but, it ain’t, I am sorry. West or East Church never questioned Trinity, you missed the point. There ARE 3 GODS, ELOHIM [plural], and that is not the problem, if you ask me. The problem persists somewhere else.
Of course, to avoid heretical trap, let me be entirely clear: for us, Christ is not a creation. He is the Word, the Logos.
While the Logos remained inside the Father as an unuttered concept, time had not yet begun to flow. But the exact moment the Father spoke Him forth, the Logos became the active agent who began to create everything. He is not a part of the created world; He is the spoken Word through whom the world itself was brought into being.
With this paragraph I totally agree.
I’m not sure who “us’ refers to but your views sound similar to some of the second and third century Logos Christology subordinationists like Justin, Tatian, and Athenagoras. However there were Logos subordinationists who thought that Christ was created. Arius of course but also his mentor Lucian of Antioch. Paul of Samosata. Dionysus of Alexandria. Frankly, second and third century conceptions of the nature of the Trinity were a mess. The argument lasted for centuries.
? try to imagine computer execution – here is the analogy in which he does NOT claim anything, but sets a structure “IF-THEN”:
To defend Arius’s theology, the Letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia contains a key phrase that uses an if-then structure to argue that the Son, having been begotten, must have a beginning, and therefore “was not” before that point. The quote, “If the Father begat the Son, then he that was begotten had a beginning of existence; and from this it is evident, that there was [a state] when the Son was not,” supports this position. This argument highlights a strict, one-God theology and uses scriptural phrasing that depicts the Son as being brought forth prior to time. [** you do not have permission to see this link **]
My “lazy, secular mysticism” is a response to Nicene Trinitarianism which is expressed through antiquated Hellenistic philosophical concepts like “substance” and “person” that no one takes seriously anymore. It has been reduced to a metaphor. But a metaphor for what? How three entities can be one yet nevertheless distinct! Try explaining that to a Martian. I am not saying that the Trinity was intended as a Zen Koan but it can certainly function that way.
Let me explain you my basics, because I want to understand with ypu:
“Substance” is material nature , and it is wrong to use that term for explaining God who is the SPIRIT; but that is exactly what they did in early Christianity.
“Person” is good term, our religion is related with some Persons, but the problem started with Alexandrians forging Antiochians language
By the middle of the 5th century (leading up to 431 AD), Western legalistic theology and the Alexandrian school began shifts in vocabulary. The word Hypostasis was gradually being pulled away from its historical meaning and used as an artificial synonym for Prosopon (Person). ** you do not have permission to see this link **
So, if we asked average Joe, what word is more likely corresponding with English word PERSON:
prosopon or hypostasis, what would be his answer? I think I made mu point.
Trinity was not the question, you are missing the point [being deceived with some anti-trinitarian sect[s]. I forgot theirs names at this moment], only because you’re pre learned with some kind of prejustices. Protestants deceived you it’s all about Trinity, but, it ain’t, I am sorry. West or East Church never questioned Trinity, you missed the point. There ARE 3 GODS, ELOHIM [plural], and that is not the problem, if you ask me. The problem persists somewhere else.
“Ok,” he said, slowly backing out of the room.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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