The Apostles understood the Trinity

[pacificmaelstrom (Jamie)]

I approach this topic with caution and humility. I may be wrong, but I have come to believe that the modern Church does not seem to understand the Trinity as the Apostles clearly did.

One God and three persons is true, but I believe the Trinity was not meant to seem paradoxical.

On the contrary, I think the Apostles who walked with Jesus, spoke of it as if it was something one could reasonably understand. And the word “trinity” does not appear in scripture for this reason; there was little confusion about the subject and thus no need for special definitions.

Further, the culprit to the current lack of understanding about the trinity is the inclusion of pagan Greek philosophy into the church, partly by Augustine, and at the ultimate cost of the Great Schism, though that is a broader topic for another time.

I think we can understand the Trinity if we listen to the apostles and Jesus. Here is what they say about the trinity:

1 Corinthians 2:11

“For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”

In this verse Paul directly compares the human spirit to the Spirit of God. What if this is just as straightforward as it sounds? Jesus backs this up:

Mark 13:32

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

Jesus is explicitly saying here that he does not know the inner thoughts of God. Why is this? John understood well. Jesus God’s Word. The Word of God does not know that which God has not yet spoken.

John 1:1-3:

”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

The Word. (Logos. Logic, Information) That is not an honorary title for Jesus, it is a description. Jesus is all that which God speaks. In this way, he is begotten of God, in the same way your words are begotten of you. Except that your words are dead, whereas Jesus is alive.

This is a key point. Jesus is the Word of the Father, and it is through his Word that the Father creates and reveals himself.

Psalm 33:9

“For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm”

Romans 1:20

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”

Hebrews 11:3

“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible”

Jesus is the only “begotten” Son of God because he IS the words of God in their totality: “without him nothing was made that has been made.”

Colossians 1:15

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation”

Jesus is God since he is God’s word. He does what God would want. They are perfectly aligned as your words are (usually) aligned with you. As Jesus says:

John 8:28

“I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me”

John 10:30

I and the Father are one.

And so, we come to an understanding of the Trinity that even a child could understand.

1. God the Father is God.
2. God the Spirit is God’s Spirit.
3. God the Son is God’s Word.

We are created in God’s image. We can understand this.

1. We have a mind and body.
2. We have a spirit within us that knows our own mind (sort of).
3. We speak and act in the world, and by this we are known to others. It is our “word”.

The confusing part perhaps is that God’s Word is a person, whereas our word is not. Our own subconscious has a sort of mind of its own, however, so we can intuit the personhood of the Father and the Spirit.

But as for our words, I think we can understand this better now, in the age of AI, that words and information, need not be static and dead. Even by our merely human power to build and program computers, code (logos) and words can take on a sort of life of their own.

How much more then must the words of God be truly Alive, and in being alive have their own personhood, that being the person of Jesus, the Word:

John 1: 4-5:

In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

[1Cor15.54 (Massimiliano)]

While I don’t think they possessed a fully conscious or developed understanding of the Trinity, I do think that—at the very least—after the Resurrection they believed Jesus was God: distinct from the Father, yet not a ‘different’ God, much less an inferior one. In other words: they had a fundamental grasp of the Trinitarian and relational nature of the one God, even if they lacked the theological framework and precise language to articulate it.

[pacificmaelstrom (Jamie)]

I appreciate the reply! You hit on a key point: did the Apostles have a ‘primitive’ grasp or did we confound their meaning with “human wisdom”?

I would argue that the ‘precise language’ developed later at Nicaea didn’t clarify the Trinity; it actually introduced the pagan Greek Error of ‘Substance’ (Ousia).

By defining God as a ‘Substance’, we validated the idea of a world made of ‘Independent Matter.’ This is the source of the very “Materialist Death Cult” I saw you mention elsewhere.

The Apostles didn’t need the word ‘Consubstantial’ because they understood the Logos. If Jesus is the Word of the Father, He is ‘One’ with the Father by nature and ‘True God,’ yet the Father remains ‘Greater’ as the Source, the speaker of the Word.

Consider what it would mean if the ‘development’ of doctrine was actually a confounding of what the Apostles already knew? We failed (and still fail) to heed the warning:

Colossians 2:8

“See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ”

[LikeHim]

Jesus(God) brought about the Holy Spirit as Pure Love and complete Being(Consciousness) in the Family of “Our Father” as being with each other and Trusting Loving each other. One Heart One Mind as Bob Marley sang. We can be “ Don’t do Me like that” as Tom Petty sang. This is some perfect World of Some Community, Some where over the Rainbow, Judy Garland.

[St.Roymond]

@pacificmaelstrom

By defining God as a ‘Substance’, we validated the idea of a world made of ‘Independent Matter.’

That misunderstand “ousia”, something that was either decidedly not material or not necessarily material, depending on the school of thought. Ousia was closer to Plato’s “ideals” than to anything material, to “essence” than to “stuff”, where “essence” is essentially a definition of a thing.

[St.Roymond]

This topic goes astray right at the start unless it is kept in mind that second-Templre Judaism had already recognized that there were ‘two’ Yahwehs, one in heaven and one that walked on earth as a man, yet still just one Yahweh – and some had ventured so far as to recognize that the Spirit was also Himself Yahweh. So trinitarianism was already a thing before Jesus came along.
For that matter, “logos” was already a concept in (at least Alexandrian) Judaism, linked with Wisdom (cf. Proverbs) – that, too, has to be included. And Wisdom was sometimes identified with Yahweh Who Walks (on the earth).

[pacificmaelstrom (Jamie)]

@St.Roymond

That misunderstand “ousia”,

Respectfully, I did not.

As Berkeley would say, can you imagine an immaterial essence? When you try you picture only something material. So it is just wordplay.

“God is Spirit”. And spirit means “Wind” yes? Wind is just a kind of substance. But “God is Wind” does not mean God is literally moving air, but that he has no body.

“No body” meaning he has no extent in space. Space has its extent only in his Logos.

So even Berkeley didn’t go far enough. The idea of “substance” was created by God, he cannot be defined by it.

If you want mystery, that is something we seem almost incapable of thinking.

[bluebird1 (Robin)]

I think that we had a conversation on this subject on the Biologos site not too many months ago. The most ancient parts of the biblical text say “The Lord your God, the Lord is One”…but it also says “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace”…[ Mighty God…Everlasting Father…Prince of Peace]…and then there were the interesting visions of Daniel…and a couple intertestamental books. Jewish writers of our day – not the 1st century CE – acknowledge (or some at least do) that the concept of a “complex” deity (two in one?) existed already in the time of Jesus and was developed before His arrival.
There is little reason to think that His followers would not have been familiar with this. The use of the word trinitas goes back to early second/late first century AD/CE–not necessarily Augustine, though he may have said more. It’s a long subject…Saying that the Apostles did not understand that the Messiah was to come and die for the sins of all humanity —that is, until after it was said and done–there is evidence of that. But the complexity of God --they likely understood it no better than we, but did not question it in the way people now do with the “what is the Trinity” question that arises here occasionally

[EDC1]

I think the apostles and the early church gradually came to understand how God is a Trinity, one being yet 3 ‘persons’. But I dont think anyone has a full understanding. Not surprising as it relates to God’s very being. What is clear, which many atheist commentators refuse to accept, is that the New Testament as a whole portrays Jesus of Nazareth as Yahweh come in the flesh. You dont even need John for that, just read the 1st chapter of the earliest Gospel, Mark.