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Doctrine

Trinity

Also Known As Holy Trinity · The Holy Trinity · triune GodOriginal Term trias (Greek); trinitas (Latin)
God and Divine Nature
Origin 325 to 381 CE

The doctrine states that God is one being in three persons, coequal and coeternal, and that this is not three gods and not one God in three appearances. It is not stated as such in scripture; it is a construction from scripture, arrived at over three centuries because the alternatives were found to fail.

The two failures it is built against are worth naming, because most people who think they hold the doctrine are actually holding one of them. Modalism treats Father, Son and Spirit as three modes or roles of a single person, the common analogies of water as ice, liquid and steam, or of a man who is father, son and husband, all teach modalism. Subordinationism treats the Son as a lesser divine being, which is what Arius held and what Nicaea rejected.

The doctrine is also the standing objection of the other monotheisms. The Quran addresses it directly and rejects it, and the Jewish objection is older still. Neither is a misunderstanding to be cleared up. They have understood the claim and they deny it.

Christianity has produced its own persistent nontrinitarian minorities, the Socinians, modern Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, and the Latter-day Saints, who affirm three persons but not one substance. Whether these count as Christian is disputed by all parties and is itself a question about who gets to define the word.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
325 to 381 CE 1
Held By
Christianity 1
Status
Status Within the Tradition
Defined and binding within this tradition 1Tradition: Christianity
Confessed at Nicaea and Constantinople and held by all Chalcedonian churches
Status Within the Tradition
Rejected, or not held, within this tradition 2Tradition: Islam
Explicitly rejected in the Quran, which forbids saying three of God
Standing as a Comparative Category
A standard analytic category in the study of religion 3
Position Profile
Opposing Position
Unitarian theology rejects the Trinity, holding God to be a single person; Jehovah's Witnesses and some other groups outside historic Trinitarian Christianity read the Son as a distinct, lesser being. 4
The Claim
The Claim
That God is one being in three coequal, coeternal persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, distinct from one another yet undivided in a single divine nature. 1
Doctrinal category (class)
God and Divine Nature 5
Identity
Canonical Reference
The doctrine's classical statement is found in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381, though the word Trinity itself does not appear in the New Testament. 1
Belief
Defining Doctrinal Position
The doctrine was substantially settled at the Councils of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381, which affirmed the Son and the Holy Spirit as fully divine alongside the Father against subordinationist readings. 1
Learn More
One God, and an Arithmetic That Is Not Arithmetic

The doctrine holds that God is one being (Greek ousia) in three persons (hypostases), Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each of them fully and equally God, so that they are not three gods and not three masks of one actor. It is the teaching that most sharply distinguishes Christianity from the other two great monotheisms, both of which read it as a compromise of the oneness of God.

The word "Trinity" is in no book of the Bible. What the New Testament supplies is the raw material: the three named together in the baptismal command of Matthew 28:19 and the blessing of 2 Corinthians 13:14, alongside a firm inheritance of Jewish monotheism and the plain fact that the early church prayed to Jesus and to the Spirit as to God.

The doctrine is the second-to-fourth-century synthesis that reconciled those data. Tertullian, writing in Latin around the year 200, seems to have coined trinitas and the formula "one substance, three persons." The point of the later definitions was never to explain the mystery but to fence it, to rule out the readings the church judged to have gone wrong.

Nicaea, Constantinople, and a Single Letter

The doctrine was forced into precision by a fourth-century crisis. Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria, taught that the Son was the first and highest of God's creatures, "there was when he was not", so that the Son was not eternal and not God in the full sense. The First Council of Nicaea in 325 answered with a word borrowed from philosophy: the Son is homoousios, "of the same being," as the Father. It differs from the rival homoiousios, "of like being," by a single Greek letter, the iota, the origin of the phrase about caring for an iota.

Nicaea did not end the argument; it began sixty years of it. Athanasius of Alexandria defended the word through repeated exiles, and the three Cappadocian Fathers, Basil of Caesarea and the two Gregorys, supplied the settled grammar of one ousia in three hypostases. The First Council of Constantinople in 381 affirmed the full divinity of the Holy Spirit and issued the creed still recited in the liturgies today. In the West, Augustine's On the Trinity added the influential "psychological" analogy of memory, understanding and will within a single mind.

The Dissenters, Ancient and Modern

Because the doctrine is a construction rather than a single proof-text, it has always had internal dissenters, and they cluster around a small number of rejected options.

Modalism (also called Sabellianism, after Sabellius) held that Father, Son and Spirit are three modes or phases of one person rather than three distinct persons; it was condemned as failing to take the distinctions seriously. Subordinationism, of which Arianism was the sharpest form, made the Son and Spirit lesser; it was condemned as failing to take the unity of Godhead seriously. The developed doctrine steers between the two.

Rejection of the doctrine as such has recurred: the anti-Trinitarians of the Radical Reformation, the later Socinians and Unitarians, and, in the modern period, groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and, in a different key, the Latter-day Saints. Each reads the same scriptures and concludes that the councils added to them. The separate quarrel of East and West over the Filioque, whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or from the Father and the Son, is a family dispute among Trinitarians and is treated in its own entry. Across Catholic, Orthodox and mainstream Protestant churches the doctrine is common ground; it is chiefly Christianity's own dissenters who have denied it.

Trinity
Filter Results1 entry

The Holy Trinity

Trinity
Connections

Affirmed By

The Holy Trinity, Beliefs & Restrictions

The Trinity affirmed as the doctrine states it, one God in three persons.

Associated With

Arius, Historical Figures
Source Orations Against the AriansAthanasius of Alexandria
Tertullian, Historical Figures

The Latin vocabulary in which the doctrine is stated, one substance and three persons, is largely his.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Belongs to Tradition

Anabaptism, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Anglican Communion, Denominations

The second article of the Quadrilateral takes the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith, with the Apostles Creed as the baptismal symbol. The Communion's trinitarian commitment is creedal rather than confessional, which is why it survives provinces that share no other doctrinal standard.

Source The Chicago-Lambeth QuadrilateralThe Lambeth Conferencethe holders' own account
Anglicanism, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Baptist, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Calvinism (Reformed), Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Christianity, Religions
Source Encyclopedia of ReligionMircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.)
Church of Cyprus, Denominations

Confessed in the words of the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople as this church recites it, without the later Western addition to the article on the Spirit.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account
Church of Greece, Denominations

Confessed in the words of the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople as this church recites it, without the later Western addition to the article on the Spirit.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account
Eastern Orthodoxy, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, Denominations

Confessed in the words of the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople, which this church receives with the first two ecumenical councils.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account
Georgian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Confessed in the words of the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople as this church recites it, without the later Western addition to the article on the Spirit.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account
Greek Orthodox Church, Denominations

Confessed in the words of the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople as this church recites it, without the later Western addition to the article on the Spirit.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account
Lutheranism, Denominations

Article I of the Augsburg Confession receives the decree of Nicaea on the unity of the divine essence and the three persons, and condemns by name the errors raised against it.

Source The Augsburg ConfessionPhilipp Melanchthon
Methodism, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including Methodism.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Oriental Orthodoxy, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition; the Oriental Orthodox churches accept the first three Ecumenical Councils, at which Trinitarian doctrine was defined.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Pentecostalism, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Presbyterianism, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Quakerism (Religious Society of Friends), Denominations

Historic Quaker theology, set out in Robert Barclay's 1678 Apology, affirms the Trinity, though the tradition holds no fixed or required creed and later Friends have read this variously.

Source An Apology for the True Christian DivinityRobert Barclay
Roman Catholicism, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Romanian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Confessed in the words of the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople as this church recites it, without the later Western addition to the article on the Spirit.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account
Serbian Orthodox Church, Denominations

Confessed in the words of the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople as this church recites it, without the later Western addition to the article on the Spirit.

Source The Nicene-Constantinopolitan CreedFirst Council of Constantinoplethe holders' own account
Seventh-day Adventism, Denominations

The doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons, is affirmed across Nicene Christianity, including this tradition.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)

Rejected Here

Oneness Pentecostalism, Denominations
Source The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001Vinson Synan (ed.)
Jehovah's Witnesses, Denominations

Jehovah's Witnesses explicitly reject the Trinity, teaching strict unitarian monotheism in which only the Father, Jehovah, is God.

Source Jehovah's Witnesses: Continuity and ChangeGeorge D. Chryssides
Latter-day Saints (Mormonism), Denominations

The first Article of Faith confesses the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost as three separate personages one in purpose, not three persons of one substance. The Nicene definition is rejected by name in this body's teaching.

Source The Pearl of Great PriceJoseph Smith

Commonly Conflated with (See Note)

The Godhead, Doctrines

Latter-day Saint teaching holds the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to be three distinct beings united in purpose, and declines the Nicene formula of one substance in three persons. The movement does not use the word Trinity for its own doctrine.

Contrasts With

Arianism, Doctrines

The Trinity as the church defined it at Nicaea and Constantinople is the position Arianism denies.

Sabellianism, Doctrines

Depicted In

Trinity (Rublev Icon), Sacred Art & Iconography

Rublev removed Abraham and Sarah from the traditional composition so that the three seated angels and their circular rhythm carry the whole theological weight of the scene as a direct meditation on the Trinity, rather than as an illustrated Bible story. Distinct from the icon's other depicts edge, to Abraham, which names the narrative figure the scene is nominally drawn from, not the doctrine the icon was built to convey.

Source The Rublev Trinity: The Icon of the Trinity by the Monk-painter Andrei Rublev (Gabriel Bunge)Gabriel Bunge

Related To

Gloria Patri, Prayers

The coordinated wording of the Gloria Patri, naming the three persons side by side with equal glory, was fixed amid the fourth century Trinitarian controversies.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Son of God, Doctrines

The Trinity is the framework in which the churches settled what the title means.

Trinity Sunday, Holidays & Festivals

Trinity Sunday is the one feast of the Western calendar devoted not to an event but to the doctrine of the Trinity, one God in three persons.

Source The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised editionF. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.)
Sources
1. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition
F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005Trinity, doctrine of the; FilioqueView the Source
2. The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (editor-in-chief), HarperOne, 2015Q 4:171, 5:73View the Source
3. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005View the Source
4. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
John Bowker (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1997View the Source
5. An Apology for the True Christian Divinity
Robert Barclay, Harvey and Darton, 1676Barclay's Apology, Proposition IV, on the true foundation of knowledgeView the Source
Jehovah's Witnesses: Continuity and Change
George D. Chryssides, Routledge, 2016
The Augsburg Confession
Philipp Melanchthon, 1530The Augsburg Confession, Article I, Of GodView the Source
The Pearl of Great Price
Joseph Smith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1851The Pearl of Great Price, Articles of Faith 1View the Source
The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral
The Lambeth Conference, 1888the holders' own account
The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed
First Council of Constantinople, 381the holders' own accountView the Source

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