Trinity

TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD:
PROF. M. M. NINAN
The Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics describes the five stages that led to the
formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.
1. The acceptance of the pre-human existence of Jesus as the (middle-platonic)
Logos, namely, as the medium between the transcendent sovereign God and the
created cosmos. The doctrine of Logos was accepted by the Apologists and by
other Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, such as Justin the Martyr, Hippolytus,
Tertullian, Ireneus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Lactantius, and the 4th
century Arius.
2. The doctrine of the timeless generation of the Son from the Father as it was
articulated by Origen in his effort to support the ontological immutability of God,
that he is ever-being a father and a creator. The doctrine of the timeless
generation was adopted by Athanasius of Alexandria.
3. The acceptance of the idea that the son of God is homoousios to his father, that is,
of the same transcendent nature. This position was declared in the Nicene Creed,
which specifically states the son of God is as immutable as his father.
4. The acceptance that the Holy Spirit also has ontological equality as a third person
in a divine Trinity and the final Trinitarian terminology by the teachings of the
Cappadocian Fathers.
5. The addition of the Filioque to the Nicene Creed, as accepted by the Roman
Catholic Church.
The Church of the East
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