The Trinity Controversy

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The Trinity which incorporates the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit was a matter of controversy in the earlier days of the church. This led to many debates, not for its validity but on the way, the Trinity was supposed to be understood. This was very important because Christianity is a monotheistic religion, but the Trinity is accepted as having three members of the Godhead. Fundamental things like this needed to be settled in order for Christians to be able to spread the religion confidently. Consequently, the debates led to two different approaches to how the Trinity is to be interpreted. The split was between eastern and western churches. Before the debates on the Trinity, the church first came to a consensus that Jesus was to be considered …show more content…

Thus the actions of God can be said to be the actions of the Trinity. The Son and Spirit only appear below the Father because of their roles in the salvation plan. In eternity they are all equal. Augustine identifies the Son with wisdom because Jesus is considered the word of God. He also identifies the Spirit with love even though that is not biblical. In the text, he explains, “The Spirit makes us dwell in God, and God in us” (58). This was his way of explaining how the Spirit worked as a whole. The Spirit was a giver of community. It is God’s gift to his believers as it is what binds the believers to God. To Augustine, the Godhead already had that relationship amongst the three persons. God wanted his people to be part of that relationship and Augustine calls that love. Augustine’s argument can be summed up with three points. God’s greatest gift is love, God’s greatest gift is the Holy Spirit, and therefore the Holy Spirit is love. The main weakness of this approach is the depersonalization of the Spirit. The Spirit is just treated more like a tool than a person. Augustine also believes that the human mind is an image of God. He states that there are three faculties of the mind that act together as one. This was used as an analogy for the Trinity. The problem with that is the human mind cannot be simplified to three faculties. Augustine gets most of his doctrine on the Trinity in the book of

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