I’ve been listening to Mark Driscoll’s 13-part Doctrine Series.[1] In the first session Mark discusses the doctrine of the trinity. He begins by quoting Augustine, whose contention was “If you deny the trinity you lose your soul. If you try to explain it you lose your mind”. I know what he means.
Of particular interest was Driscoll’s response to the challenge that it took such a long time for the doctrine of the Trinity to develop, with the formal doctrines we use today not appearing until the 4th and 5th centuries. The inference being that the church merely decided upon (or, invented) the Trinity long after the events recorded in the New Testament.
To quote Driscoll loosely:[1]
Some say that it seems like it took a long time for the doctrine of the trinity to develop. Well, when the whole church is suffering persecution, people are being fed to lions, they’re being run through with swords, they’re being burned alive, they’re being crucified one after another, the Pastors are being beheaded, people are running for their lives … it’s really hard to crank out a lot of Systematic Theology under those cultural conditions. You’re trying to live and teach your people, but you’re burying a lot of them also, the whole church is suffering. So it would be surprising to find a robust development of any doctrine from the first three centuries of Christianity. But once persecution died down they started clarifying some of their doctrinal beliefs, including at the Council of Nicaea in 325AD where the belief of one God, three persons was clearly articulated. And that has held ever since. The doctrine of the trinity was also laid down again at the Council of Constantinople in 381AD. Then Augustine of Hippo, spent 19 years (from 400AD to 419AD) studying the doctrine of the trinity. The result was his book ‘The Treatise on the Trinity’, which has held up for more than 1500 years. The result today being that all Christians believe in the trinity [I think Driscoll means, by definition]. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans… all believe in the trinity. We all agree that there is one God, three persons, Father Son and Spirit.
