"Should You Believe in the Trinity?"
This writing analyzes the sources of the first 12 pages of the booklet titled Should You Believe in the Trinity?, published by the Watchtower Society. The source analysis does not intend to argue in favor of the doctrine of the Trinity, but seeks to answer the question: Does the Society act correctly and truthfully when quoting ancient and modern authorities? Does it deceive its uninformed and unsuspecting readers? Usually, this booklet is handed out by the well-meaning Witnesses to Christians and those who are interested. The goal of the publication is to make the reader reject the doctrine of the Trinity. Of course, this booklet unsettles many Christians for several reasons. Firstly, the average Christian is not prepared for religious debates against the Witnesses. Secondly, unfortunately, they often do not know their own faith well enough. Thirdly, only a few can verify every piece of information because the booklet never provides the exact sources of the quotations.
Of course, the publication also reached historians, theologians, and educated laypeople who - based on their above-average knowledge of their field - raised too many questions. They asked the Society for the exact sources of the quotations, and their research results have long been published. The Society - as it had nothing to answer - chose the policy of silence in this case as well, so the Witnesses know absolutely nothing about these things.
1. Quotations from modern authors
The WTS quotes The Encyclopedia Americana incompletely. The full text is: "Trinitarians hold that, although the doctrine is beyond the grasp of human reason, it is, like many scientific tenets, not contrary to reason, and may be apprehended by the human intellect even if it cannot be comprehended." Therefore, the encyclopedia does not share the Society's view that the doctrine is "contrary to normal thinking", but compares it to scientific theorems that may seem paradoxical due to their incomprehensibility, yet are apprehensible and manageable.
Indeed, a detailed exposition of the Trinity was not in official theological use until the 4th century, i.e., it was not a creed sanctioned by councils, but this does not refute that its essence, in simpler terms, was believed and taught even before the councils. The doctrine was only dealt with at the councils of the 4th century because it was fundamentally questioned by so many people that the issue affected the entire church. The WTS quotes the The Illustrated Bible Dictionary one-sidedly, which in the same article states: "Although Scripture does not provide a formulated doctrine of the Trinity, it contains all the elements from which theology has constructed the teaching." Therefore, despite the Society's incomplete quotation, the theological dictionary supports the Christian view and contradicts the Society's position with its expert authority.
The fact that the Trinity itself is not "directly and concretely" mentioned in the Bible does not negate the possibility that, like many other theological terms, the word expresses biblical content (such as theocracy or the concept of the organization for the Watchtower Society).
The Society quotes the Trinitas – A Theological Encyclopedia of the Holy Trinity incompletely, the the full text is:
"The great African [i.e., Tertullian] fashioned the Latin language of the Trinity, and many of his words and phrases remained permanently in use: the words Trinitas and persona, the formulas 'one substance in three persons,' 'God from God, light from Light.' He uses the word substantia 400 times, as he uses consubstantialis [of the same substance] and consubstantivus, but hasty conclusions cannot be drawn from usage, for he does not apply the words to Trinitarian theology."
Contrary to the Society's suggestion, not only the writers of the theological encyclopedia, but Tertullian himself also believed in the Trinity ("one substance in three persons", etc.), even if he did not use the word trinitas in his argumentation.
The WTS quotes Edmund Fortman several times; what was said in the first quote only referred to the Old Testament and its authors, and no one disputes his statement, yet on the same page he himself writes: "...it can be said that some of these writings [Old Testament] about word and wisdom and spirit did provide a climate in which plurality within the Godhead was conceivable to Jews." Note: Old Testament passages referring to the divinity of the Messiah, according to Christian theology, only became clear in retrospect, with their fulfillment in Jesus.
By paying attention to the quote from the encyclopedia and Fortman, it is clear that they only claim that the authors of the New Testament did not formulate the mystery of God's nature as an explicit doctrine, officially and in detail. Although the WTS's partial quotes may suggest that Fortman does not believe in the Trinity, the complete text is:
"If we take the New Testament writers together they tell us there is only one God, the creator and lord of the universe, who is the Father of Jesus. They call Jesus the Son of God, Messiah, Lord, Savior, Word, Wisdom. They assign Him the divine functions of creation, salvation, judgment. Sometimes they call Him God explicitly. They do not speak as fully and clearly of the Holy Spirit as they do of the Son, but at times they coordinate Him with the Father and the Son and put Him on a level with them as far as divinity and personality are concerned. They give us in their writings a triadic ground plan and triadic formulas. They do not speak in abstract terms of nature, substance, person, relation, circumincession, mission, but they present in their own ways the ideas that are behind these terms. They give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. But they do give us an elemental trinitarianism, the data from which such a formal doctrine of the Triune God may be formulated."
Despite the WTS's partial, one-sided quote, Fortman's intent as an author and his general understanding of the topic contradicts the theology of the WTS.
The term 'Trinity' and the formulated doctrine, of course, are not present in the New Testament. However, the WTS also quotes The New Encyclopaedia Britannica one-sidedly, which states even within the same entry that "the New Testament lays the foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity." The encyclopedia shares the Christian standpoint that the New Testament is the basis of the doctrine. Its scientific authority contradicts the opinion of the WTS.
Referring to The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, the WTS claims that the Bible "lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence", but the summary by the WTS ("there is no concrete statement") even goes beyond this. Despite the suggestion of the WTS, the authors of this theological dictionary do not assert the lack of the teaching of the Trinity from the New Testament, but only the "developed doctrine of the Trinity" and the term "of the same essence" (homoousios). Note that John 10:30 and 2 Corinthians 3:17 at least assert the inseparability of the persons, if not their identical nature.
The Trinity as a "dogma" or "concept" was of course unknown to Jesus and Paul, just like the artificial term "Jehovah", or the concept of "theocratic organization". The WTS was only able to turn Hopkins' sentence into "confirming" evidence by quoting it incompletely. In the omitted part, there is a whole clause in the original English and the word referring back to it: "The beginning of the teaching of the Trinity already appears in John's [gospel] (ca. 100), but they say nothing about it [i.e., the Trinity]." Thus, Hopkins sees the teaching appearing at least in one of the books of the New Testament, and this contradicts the Society's view.
The Society fails to mention that historians Will Durant and Siegfried Morenz made similar dismissive statements about things that the Society believes in. For example, according to pages 594-595 of Durant's book (Caesar and Christ), "The Apocalypse is Jewish poetry, the fourth gospel is Greek philosophy... John joined the Greek philosophers." The Society's quote from him: "The idea of the divine trinity originated in Egypt" is incomplete, Durant also includes the Last Judgement among Egyptian ideas, and a little lower he declares: "Millennialism originated in Persia" (i.e., the hope of the Millennial Kingdom, a teaching of fundamental importance for Jehovah's Witnesses). Similarly, the Society fails to mention that Morenz considered the monotheism that believes in one God, the creation myth (pages 162-163), Jewish wisdom literature (pages 251-252), and Jesus' parables (page 254) etc. to be of Egyptian, pagan origin. Yet, as he notes (page 255): "To avoid gross misunderstanding, let us emphasize once again that the essence of the Christian Trinity is, of course, biblical." In my opinion, such uncertain, dubious sources can indeed only be used with incomplete citations, the only question is, is it worth it?
"In the foreword to Edward Gibbon's History of Christianity, we read..." First of all, the quote is not from Gibbon himself, but from the publisher's foreword (words of Peter Eckler). The Society does not reveal about Gibbon that his church history published in 1881 is anti-Christian in all respects. Gibbon was a deist, and according to this worldview, God has not intervened in the world since creation. The continuation of the Eckler quote (on page 16) also mentions the incarnation, the doctrine of the Son becoming flesh, as a pagan belief. Why does the Society, God's alleged "channel of communication", need to borrow arguments from such an anti-Christ thinker (cf. 1Jn 4:2-3)?
The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics only mentions some similarities, but does not identify pagan religions as the source of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Even on the same page, we read: "...Christian faith, by uniting the believer in the communion of the Holy Spirit with the divine Word (logos, sermo, ratio) incarnated in the man Jesus Christ, provides a distinctive basis for the Christian teaching of the Trinity." Despite the Society's one-sided quotation, the authors of the encyclopedia do not see the roots of the doctrine of the Trinity in pagan religions, so their authority contradicts the Society's view.
The Society also quotes the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics article incompletely. In the place marked with the ellipsis, we find the following in the English text: "they were not Trinitarians in the strictly ontological reference". The article means by "ontological reference" that the Christian writers of the first centuries did not speak of God primarily in terms of his essence, nature (ontologically) as a Trinity, but considering his salvific activity and appearance in the world (economically). The "economic trinity" is not a variant of trinitarian doctrine, but one of the earliest discovered and proclaimed aspects of the Trinity. The 2nd and 3rd century apostolic fathers and church fathers needed this approach to prove to pagan philosophers and Gnostics that (1) in history (2) the same one God (3) acted and acts among us as creator, redeemer, and sanctifier (not three separate gods). The encyclopedia, in the same article, also notes that "although the doctrine of the Trinity appeared somewhat later in theology, it must have been very early in worship." Despite the Society's incomplete quotation, the authors of the encyclopedia, based on the study of the writers of the first centuries, were convinced of their trinitarian faith, thus their authority contradicts the Society's view.
The Society also quotes early Christian writers who indeed wanted to represent the teaching of the church with their writings. However, what was and still is authoritative from their words is only what is biblical. Secondly, as the previous example showed, if we do not know who they wrote for, against whom, and following what method of argumentation, we misunderstand them.
2. Quotations taken from ancient authors
Of the 2nd-century apologetics, who are closest in time to the New Testament roots, the Society quotes Justin Martyr alone, although contemporaries Aristides, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Melito of Sardis, and Hermias shared Justin's faith. Among the 2nd-century Greek defenders of the faith, Justin belonged to the philosophically educated cultured class, and he primarily tried to convince the (pagan and Jewish) skeptics of this class with the tools of philosophy. With the above quote, the Society twists Justin's words to suggest that this Christian apologist, like the Society, considered Jesus a created, angelic being.
"Now the Word of God is His Son, as we have before said. And He is called [by the Bible, not by Justin!] Angel and Apostle; for He declares whatever we ought to know, and is sent forth to declare whatever is revealed; as our Lord Himself says, “He that heareth Me, heareth Him that sent Me.” From the writings of Moses also this will be manifest; for thus it is written in them, “And the Angel of God spake to Moses, in a flame of fire out of the bush, and said, I am that I am, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of thy fathers; go down into Egypt, and bring forth My people.” And if you wish to learn what follows, you can do so from the same writings; for it is impossible to relate the whole here. But so much is written for the sake of proving that Jesus the Christ is the Son of God and His Apostle, being of old the Word, and appearing sometimes in the form of fire, and sometimes in the likeness of angels; but now, by the will of God, having become man for the human race..."
So Justin here speaks of Jesus as a messenger (Greek: angelos) and emissary (Greek: apostolos), but words describing his activity cannot be used as an ontological definition of his nature (i.e., that he would be an "angelic being" or, by the same logic, an "apostolic being"). The Society thus put its own words into Justin's mouth, who also wrote elsewhere about Christian worship:
"Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), and the prophetic Spirit, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught."
Justin speaks of the worship and reverence of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. However, the mention of angels is indeed strange; perhaps they were included in the list to prove that the heaven in which Christians believe is not "empty", or he was thinking of Hebrews 12:22-24? Justin himself knew that angels should not be worshiped, only God, which is why he quoted Matthew 22:37 in chapter XVI:6. In the same writing, he said: "They accuse us of madness because we place second, after the unchangeable and eternal God, the parent of the universe, as they think, a crucified man, because they do not know the mystery of this..."
The original of the Society's second quote, that Jesus "differs from the God who created everything", cannot be found in any of Justin's works; the statement itself would contradict both Justin and the Bible (cf. Jn 1:3, Col 1:16-17). With the third quote, that Jesus "never did and said anything but what the Creator commanded him", the Society wants to suggest that Jesus was also considered by Justin to be a lower-order creature. Although the source of this quote could not be found either, the Son's obedience to the Father or the Spirit's obedience to the Son simply follows from the different tasks of the divine persons in Trinitarian doctrine, and it proves their perfect harmony in their roles in salvation; therefore, the subordination of the Son and the Spirit does not signify inferiority. Justin considered Jesus to be God become man, as can be read in his work "Dialogue with Trypho the Jew":
"Trypho: "You endeavour to prove an incredible and well-nigh impossible thing; [namely], that God endured to be born and become man." Justin: "If I undertook to prove this by doctrines or arguments of man, you should not bear with me. But if I quote frequently Scriptures, and so many of them, referring to this point, and ask you to comprehend them, you are hard-hearted in the recognition of the mind and will of God. But if you wish to remain for ever so, I would not be injured at all; and for ever retaining the same [opinions] which I had before I met with you, I shall leave you. [...] they agree that some Scriptures which we mention to them, and which expressly prove that Christ was to suffer, to be worshipped, and [to be called] God, and which I have already recited to you, do refer indeed to Christ, but they venture to assert that this man is not Christ. But they [the Jews] admit that He will come to suffer, and to reign, and to be worshipped, and to be God..."
Later Justin also wrote:
"And David predicted that He would be born from the womb before sun and moon, according to the Father's will, and made Him known, being Christ, as mighty God and to be worshipped."
Justin is talking here about the Messiah, who is the "mighty" or "mighty God" mentioned in Isaiah 9:6 (the Jehovah's Witnesses also accept this, but they don't realize that this is also a title of Jehovah, see Isaiah 10:20-21, etc.). Despite the suggestion of the Society, Justin worshipped God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit based on the Bible (although he did not use the word Trinity), and he considered Jesus to be God incarnate. Even if his statement of faith was not always correct (in the eyes of the post-Nicene Council), he was able to die a martyr for it.
Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyon, also belongs to the apologists of the 2nd century, but it should be known that the first third of his five-volume work against heresies (from which the Society's quote comes) is a debate with the Gnostics. In this passage, Irenaeus refutes the Gnostic speculation that there would be a demi-god-like "demiurge" besides the one God, who created the material world, and whom the Gnostics identified with the God of the Old Testament (Jehovah). According to Irenaeus' argument, the Church believes "in one God, the Almighty Father, the creator of heaven, earth, and sea and everything in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the prophets about God's decisions". Irenaeus is talking about who the Church believes in, hence he refers to Jesus here as "Christ Jesus, our Lord and God and Savior and King." It's worth noting that the Society does not quote when Irenaeus allegedly "showed" that Jesus is not equal to "the one true and only God", but simply puts their own opinion into Irenaeus' mouth, without quoting the full text. The second fragment ("he is above everyone, and there is no one else besides him") also could not be found. With this incomplete method of quotation, we could also prove from the Bible that "there is no God" (cf. Psalm 14:1)! In any case, Irenaeus clearly expressed his belief about the relationship between the Father and the Son in one of his teaching works:
"Therefore, the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, and the Father is God and the Son is God, for he who is born of God is God. Thus, by the essence and power of his nature, he appears as one God, and on the other hand, as the administrator of our salvation, he is Son and Father."
About Isaiah 7:14, he wrote:
"The translation of Emmanuel is: God with us, or the prophet expresses a wish like this: May God be with us! Accordingly, the interpretation and manifestation of the good news according to its meaning, because 'Behold - he says - the Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, him who is God, to be with us.', at the same time he marvels at the thing, announcing the future event, that God will be with us. (...) The same prophet also says: 'A son is born to us, and a child is given to us, and his name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God.'"
Irenaeus knew only of one Creator, and considered Jesus to be him: "Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who out of his unparalleled love for his creation [understand: the world created by him] descended to be born of a virgin."
All in all, despite the Society's suggestion, Irenaeus considered Jesus to be God incarnate; he did not use the word Trinity, he did not articulate the doctrine "flawlessly", but along with the early Church, he believed in God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Clement of Alexandria, not a very authoritative Church Father regarding the orthodox faith, was often criticized by his contemporaries for his speculations. Bishops Photios and Rufinus accused him of considering the Son to be a "creature." However, Clement never claimed this, the Society simply puts their opinion into Clement's mouth, quoting incompletely from Alvan Lamson's work on church history from page 124 (there will be more about Lamson's book later). Contrary to the Society's claim, Clement refers to Christ as the "eternal Son", and stated that "the Father never existed without the Son", for "the Son is the same God as the Father." Although for Clement "Christ is two: divine and human, and only these two: God and man", both his contemporaries and today's theology consider that he excessively neglected Jesus' human nature, emotional world, perhaps due to his own ascetic ideals, or because he most often spoke of the Son as the Logos, the Word of God, the Wisdom. Clement's image of the Triune God is well illustrated by his exclamation:
"What a wonderful mystery! One is the Father of the universe, one is the Logos of the universe, the Holy Spirit is also one, and everywhere the same!"
Contrary to the Society's claims, Clement believed in Jesus being both God and man, considered the Holy Spirit to be a person, and although he had no word for person, essence, or Trinity, he believed in the unity of the three divine persons.
We have already discussed Tertullian's faith above, at the Society's second claim. The Society's first quote is part of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which professes that the persons are distinct, that the relationship between them is real (e.g., sending, love, dialogue), that the Son was "born" (but not created), and that while fulfilling his messianic role, the Father is "greater" than him. The Society quotes the second quote ("There was a time when the Son did not exist") out of context. In this section, Tertullian elaborates that while the persons are one in essence, they exist as separate persons in relation to each other: "[the Father] could not have been a Father before the Son, nor a judge before sin"; this was not an orthodox view, in fact, Tertullian contradicted himself, as in another writing he professed the Father, the Son, and the Spirit to be "eternal." [The Ante-Nicene Fathers, - Vol..3 (p. 478) Against Hermogenes 3] The Society's third quote ("God was alone when no other beings existed.") comes from another work, and in an accurate translation, it reads: "Before all things, God was alone". The statement can again be misunderstood without context; on the one hand, Tertullian argues against the modalist (according to modalism, God is only one person, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are only three successive appearances of the one God, but they are not real persons) Praxeas, who did not consider the Logos (the Son) eternal, only a temporary, second appearance form of the one-person God. Arguing against him, Tertullian identified the Word (logos) with God's Intelligence (nous) to more easily prove the eternity of the Logos: the eternal God's Intelligence must also be eternal, so God was never alone. Of course, this speculative argument is highly debatable: if the Logos were only God's intelligence, it would not always have been an independent person, and if it had come into existence over time – within God – how could it be eternal and uncreated?
"Therefore, we do not dare to assert boldly that God was not alone even before the creation of the universe, for his intelligence [nous] and his speech [logos] which he made second within himself were in him."
[The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3 (p. 600-601) Against Praxeas 5]
Despite the Society's suggestion and Tertullian's occasionally speculative argumentation, the Church Father indeed professed the divinity of Jesus, he is the origin of the "three persons – one essence" formula, so his faith contradicts that of the Society.
Hippolytus actually wrote against another modalist, Noetus, and he also argued that the persons have existed together forever, not just as successive manifestations. The Society only adds its own opinion to Hippolytus' words: "he also created Jesus in this way", and as the usual ellipsis suggests, the quote is incomplete. Here is the missing part: "...with whom no one is coeval. Nothing existed beside Him, but He, although He existed alone, existed in plurality" [The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5 (p. 227) Against Noetus 10]. Hippolytus also notes this in the same section: "So whether man wants it or not, he is forced to accept God, the almighty Father, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who being God became man, to whom the Father subjected everything, except Himself, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are together." Moreover, he refers to Jesus as "Christ, the Almighty". Despite the Society's suggestion and incomplete quotation, Hippolytus both professed the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity, so his faith also contradicts that of the Society.
Origen was a highly influential, but controversial and heresy-suspected teacher, who his contemporaries also had a hard time judging clearly. In hindsight, we cannot ignore his speculative thinking (allegorizing Bible interpretation), his gnostic origin belief in the existence of the human soul before physical birth (pre-existence), but especially that he considered the Son and the Holy Spirit inferior to the Father, and denied that it would be permissible to pray to the Son (cf. Acts 7:55-60). So, the Society wanted to build on the authority of Origen, someone they would reject due to his majority of false teachings, and whose theology the church neither considered nor considers authoritative at that time or today.
Why the sources of the quotes are not provided
In the section about the apostolic and church fathers, the Society does not provide the exact source of the quotes either. Robert U. Finnerty, who wrote a separate book about the Watchtower Society's claims regarding the church fathers and the real testimonies of the church fathers, asked the Society for the source of the quotes found in their publication. The Society complied with his request in a letter dated December 13, 1989, but the response letter only included a few photocopied pages from a single ecclesiastical history work published in 1869, from the already mentioned book by Alvan Lamson. The Society quotes this same Lamson at the end of the chapter about the fathers before the Council of Nicea, as a summary (on page 7). Lamson's long title of the volume is already revealing: "The Church of the First Three Centuries, or Notes on the Lives and Opinions of the Early Fathers, with Particular Reference to the Doctrine of the Trinity, Illustrating its Late Origin and Gradual Formation". The author was obviously not impartial. Although the Society mentions that Calvin was a Trinitarian, it is silent about Lamson being a Unitarian (also a denier of the Trinity). As for Lamson's scholarly approach, to judge his sources or handling of sources, it is sufficient to read through the above quotes. The Society tried to convince the Readers that the Christian teachers of the first three centuries were not Trinitarians, based solely on the findings of a few pages of a single Unitarian publication from the past century!
3. The History of the Councils
From the Society's presentation, it seems as if only a debating minority professed the divinity of Jesus, as if Constantine had to convene the council because of them and the topic, as if Constantine opposed the majority opinion, and as if he decided. In contrast, it is a fact that the person of Jesus was just one of the debated topics among others: from the celebration of Easter to the issues of re-acceptance of apostates during the persecutions to the attitude towards usury, about 20 "canons", i.e., provisions were formulated. It is also a fact that there were hardly any Latin, Western bishops among them, the majority, like Arian, who denied the divinity of Jesus, were Greek, Eastern. Arian, however, had only 17 supporters (!), although Eusebius of Nicomedia, the court bishop, and the host of the council, the bishop of Nicaea, Theognis, stood by him. So Arian had more influence on Constantine than his opponents. Constantine's primary goal was religious unity: everyone should celebrate at the same time and with one confession of faith, therefore
"...he encouraged [the bishops] to harmony and agreement, and urged that everyone alike should lay aside the complaint against his neighbour. For the most part, they were accusing each other, and many of them had submitted petitions to the emperor the day before. Then he called on them to turn to the matter for which they had come together, then ordered that the petitions be burned, and only added: 'Christ commands that he who needs forgiveness should forgive his brother.' Then he spoke at length about agreement and peace, and then allowed them to examine the doctrines more deeply with their understanding."
For the sake of the empire, Constantine wanted a compromise that would require excommunication of as few bishops as possible (e.g., followers of Arian). In the end, the council compiled a creed that only five opposed.
According to the Society, the council "made no mention" of the Holy Spirit, and the council "did not decide" about it. However, this is contradicted by the triple "We believe..." at the end of the Nicene Creed, which proclaims faith and trust in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There was nothing to "decide" anyway, as the subject of the debate was the divinity of Jesus. The closing sentence of the circular letter issued by the council is Trinitarian: "Pray for all of us, that what we have decided well may remain firm through the almighty God and our Lord Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Spirit, to whom [singular!] is the glory forever!"
The quote taken from the Chadwick book cited by the Society suggests that the author considers Constantine the Great's conversion to have been purely a political move. The full text, however, is:
"But as we cannot interpret his conversion as an inner experience of grace, we should not consider it a cynical act of Machiavellian cunning."
Contrary to the Society's suggestion, Chadwick does not share the popular notion that Constantine never became a Christian:
"Even though the symbol of the sun had been engraved on Constantine's coins for a long time, from 313 his letters leave no doubt that he considered himself a Christian, whose duty as a ruler was to maintain a unified church. He was only baptized on his deathbed in 337, but this does not cast doubt on his Christian faith. It was a common practice at that time (and even later, until about AD 400) to postpone baptism until the end of one's life, especially if the person, as an official, was tasked with torturing and executing criminals."
This baptismal practice, of course, is contrary to Scripture. According to Chadwick, Constantine originally adhered to the so-called solar monotheism, the religion of the Sun as the only god. From this faith, it was theoretically easy for him to convert to Christianity, which centers on Christ as the light of the world. However, his faith was indeed characterized by a strange duality – perhaps for political reasons: he built churches and supported Bible publishing, enacted child and slave protection laws, but in Byzantium he erected a statue of the Sun god (allegedly with his own features) and the mother goddess Cybele (but with a Christian praying gesture, which outraged the pagans).
Firstly, Constantine did not need to propose the "final formulation of Christ's relationship to God". as this was one of the pre-announced topics of the council. Secondly, the issue was the vocabulary of the doctrine: the Latin and Greek church fathers, due to linguistic differences, were mutually afraid that someone could misunderstand the other's formulations in a tritheist or modalist direction. Despite this, we know that the key word of the creed (consubstantial) was used by the previous generations according to the fathers of the council: "For we have known among the ancients such wise and excellent bishops and writers who, in connection with the theology of the Father and the Son, used the expression 'consubstantial.'"
From the Society's portrayal, it might seem as if a decision was made by an emperor at the Council of Constantinople as well, as if the doctrine of the Trinity only spread after this, leading to the persecution of the Arians. Moreover, the Society does not mention the important decisions of the intervening councils at all.
However, according to the records, just seven years after the Council of Nicaea (AD 332) – under the influence of Eusebius of Nicomedia, a court bishop vacillating between Arianism and Trinitarianism – Constantine began to support Arianism again. The following fifty years largely favored the Arians, so their teachings spread widely. (Arius himself was quickly pushed into the background and died in 336.) The church practically split into two parts; Athanasius of Alexandria, a defender of the Trinity, was exiled, which was protested by the Western bishops at the Council of Sardica in 342, renewing the Nicene Creed. The Eastern bishops, convening separately, tried to avoid the term "consubstantial" in their creed with the words "similar in all respects" and "similar in essence". Constantine's successor, Constantius, also sympathized with Arianism, but at the Council of Rimini, called by him in 359, 400 Western bishops reaffirmed the Nicene Creed. However, the Easterners, who were meeting separately but simultaneously in Seleucia, continued to deny this. The Arian emperors Julian and Valens could not stop the fragmentation of the Arian party into factions.
Part of the Arians at this time proclaimed that the Holy Spirit was the creation of the Son, thus the "grandson" of the Father. In the 360s, several councils in Rome and Alexandria opposed them. In the West, the Trinitarian Emperor Gratian ruled from 375, and in the East, Theodosius, also a Trinitarian. In 381, he convened a council in Constantinople, but only the Eastern bishops attended, barely 150, while the Westerners were meeting in Aquileia. Macedonius, the Bishop of Constantinople, who considered the Holy Spirit merely a creature, and 35 of his colleagues left the council early, so the influence of the Western and Eastern Trinitarians fully prevailed at the council.
The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, as it is known, was a refinement and extension of the Nicene Creed. The detailed explanation of the divinity of the Spirit was based on the creedal proposal of the earlier book (Ancoratus) by Bishop Epiphanius of Cyprus; however, in the formulation of the entire creed, the greatest role was undoubtedly played by Athanasius. He is rightly credited with the so-called Athanasian Creed, as it truly reflects his formulation.
4. Parallels in the History of Religion
The Society sees the influence of pagan beliefs from the ancient world appearing in the doctrine of the Trinity, particularly through the doctrine's defender, Athanasius. However, if Athanasius's supposed pagan influence is due to his Alexandrian origin, the same could be said about Arius, who is also from Alexandria. Moreover, he mainly taught in Antioch, one of the contemporary centers of Aristotelian philosophy:
"Arius learned from Aristotle that the difference in name implies the difference in the subject. The apple is not the tree, thus the Father is not the Son. If the distinction between the apple and the tree were not real, both could be given the same name. On the other hand, if the Father and the Son need to be distinguished from each other by name, it is evident that they are not identical. For Arius, this meant that if the Father is God, then the Son cannot be God in the same sense. He could be divine, but his divinity is only partial or derived."
(Gerald Bray: Creeds, Councils and Christ—Did the early Christians misrepresent Jesus?, Rossshire, England, Mentor Books, 1997, p. 106)
Interestingly, Jehovah's Witnesses still argue against the Trinity using Aristotle's logic applicable to the natural world. The early church fathers fought as vehemently against polytheism as against Arianism, as they considered it a variant of polytheism. Surprisingly, contrary to the Society's claims, Arianism was close to Plato's philosophy and Gnostic speculations, not the doctrine of the Trinity. Platonist and Gnostic views cannot tolerate the idea of God becoming human because they don't believe He could be related to the created material world. In their opinion, the "demiurge", a "divine" being created first and standing between God and man, created the material world which they judged to be inherently evil. Against them, the Trinitarians defended the ancient biblical belief that God alone is the Creator (Gen 1:1, Isa 44:24, 45:12 etc. cf. Jn 1:3, Col 1:16-17). It is also no coincidence that the late Roman emperors were more inclined towards Arianism, as they traditionally considered themselves semi-divine, divine. It was much harder for them to accept the doctrine of the Trinity because it clearly separated the one Creator from all other creatures.
5. The Illustration
The Society aims to suggest with the color illustration on page 10 that the doctrine of the Trinity could have evolved from the Egyptian and Hindu triads. However, the question is whether the religiosity behind the Indian (4) and Cambodian (5) triads was not too geographically distant from Christianity to have such a profound influence on it? Similarly, are the Egyptian (1) and Babylonian (2) triads of gods from the 2nd millennium BC not too early and distant examples? The Palmyrene triad (3) is from the 1st century AD, but it depicts three warrior male figures symbolizing the sky and celestial bodies. The Cambodian "Buddhist triune deity" (5) is four-faced, looking in four directions, and it does not depict a "deity", but Buddhas, enlightened humans (Buddhism is an atheistic religion).
As for the religions themselves, although the Egyptian Isis cult was still operating even in the first Christian centuries, could such a secret mystery religion actually influence those Christians who constantly mocked the Greek, Roman, and Anatolian polytheists in their writings? The ancient pagan triads of gods all depict three separate figures because they believed in three (or more) separate gods and the hierarchy of gods. In fact, almost all of them had a female partner, a wife, and a child as well, so they weren't really "triads", but just the chief gods among many.
As for the medieval and modern European three-faced, but one-headed torsos (6, 7, 8, 9), it should be noted that their creators indeed violated the prohibition of depicting God. However, the idea behind the artists' conception could only have been the unique historical thought of the Trinity doctrine (one God in three persons), not the images of pagan gods (groups) that could be depicted much more simply.
Questions
What would the Society say if someone wanted to prove the doctrine of the Trinity with incomplete and one-sided quotes ripped from the Watchtower publications? Would they consider it fair and legitimate, or deliberate deception? Isn't the repeated, deliberately incomplete quoting an abuse of others' authority? Isn't the abuse of others' authority a deliberate deception? Does the Society deserve the readers' pre-allocated trust? Has any of the anonymous authors of the publication ever taken responsibility for the deception? In the end, do you have to believe in the publication titled "Should You Believe in the Trinity?"
