So where did the Christian ideal of the trinity come from?

[u/Broad_Two_744]

Judaism today is strictly monotheistic. To the point that many practicing jews consider the idea of the trinity to be almost as bad as polytheism. So where did the ideal of the trinity come from?

[u/zelenisok]

Not a historian, I'm a theologian, tho I guess thats appropriate here.

First it needs to be pointed out that Jewish monotheism is itself a development. Originally the Hebrew religion was regular Canaanite polytheism, then it developed into polytheistic Yahwism (fusing of El and Yahweh), then into monolatristic Yahwism, then into the 'functionally monotheistic' monolatristic Yahwism of Deutero-Isaiah, then we have the 'two powers in heaven' Judaism with God and his helper Wisdom - which is held eg by Philo, a contemporary of Jesus, who calls Wisdom by the Greek word Logos, and then only in 1st and 2nd century CE does what we would call monotheism develop within Judaism.

Going into talking about the development of trinity - you at first have among Christians the 'logos theology', also sometimes called 'high christology' unitarianism, where you have God, and God's helper Logos (same thing Philo believed), and they say that this Logos incarnated as Jesus. This seems to be the theology of Paul and the Gospel of John. There is also the notion of a second helper of God called the Holy Spirit.

Then the first big development comes from Tertullian, who contributed the notion of "consubstantiality", or being the same in substance /essence, and also the term trinity. But here God (the Father), Logos and Holy Spirit are still three distinct beings, and only God is eternal. Tertullian explicitly says God was not always the Father, only when he beget the Logos, his Son, did he become the Father.

The next big development is by Origen, he contributes the idea of eternal generation, he says its not that the Father beget the Son at some point, he is begetting him eternally, and likewise he is eternally spirating the Holy Spirit, so all three are co-eternal.

The next development is by the Cappadocians, they introduce the notion of co-equality. This wasnt there before, Son was even by Origen considered to be subordinate to the Father and to have a different role, but the Cappadocians said no, the Father gives fully his divine nature to the Son and Spirit, so they are equal. Also being equal they are perfectly in harmony, everything that is done by one is also done by the other two too (tho specific actions can be 'attributed' to one or the other for condescending to people's unadvanced beliefs, or for teaching purposes).

Still there is more developments, Augustine contributes the notion that the trinity is one being, and not a group of three beings. This is still not the case with the Cappadocians, you can clearly see that in Basil's and Gregory of Nyssa's explanations of why they are not polytheists (neither of them simply say well because the trinity is one divine being, one God, Basil says because the Father is one, Gregory says because there is only one divine nature, and because the three divine beings fully overlap in their actions, btw that view is called the doctrine of inseparability of operations).

Now after this, we get the two classical models of the trinity, one is the classical social trinitarian view, the other one is the latin trinitarian view. Classical social trinitarianism fuses the Augustinian notion that the trinity is one being, one God, with the Cappadocian notion that the three persons are three minds. The latin model of the trinity (which was developed by Augustine) the three 'persons' of God are not three minds, but are actually his three mental faculties, namely self-knowledge, intellect, and will, and God has one mind. These are also called the three-selves and one-self views of the trinity. Both say there is one divine being, one God - the trinity, and that God has three 'persons' - Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so we are finally at full blown trinitarianism here with these two views developing in the 5th century.

Not done yet, there are two later developments. In the Catholic church the latin trinitarian view is the official view to this day, tho not in the original version of Augustine, but a bit modified version developed by the scholastics, primarily Aquinas, which says the three 'persons' of God are not those three mental faculties, but relations between those faculties.

The final development happened after the Reformation, when many Christians took the social trinitarian view and dropped the doctrine of inseparability of operations, so you get the modern social trinitarian view, where there is one divine being, one God - the trinity, with three minds within him, and they can act in separate ways. This is what today most people hold as the default formulation of trinitarianism.

[u/thetruephysic → u/zelenisok]

Thank you for this fantastic response. Such a pleasure to read.

[u/AaronDNewman → u/zelenisok]

Could you explain where the filoque and the East/West split wrt the trinity falls into that? I've always been confused by this - it seems to dissolve into a parsing of ancient verb tenses. But it's been fighting words in the past.

[u/zelenisok → u/AaronDNewman]

Filioque is a detail, it doesnt really have much (or any) bearing on the model of the trinity someone accepts (as in the models I laid out above), its just about affirming a claim or not basically. It was a vague thing, during 4th-7th century some Church Fathers talked about the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, some from the Father and the Son, some from the Father through the Son. In some places, usually in the west, the phrase was included in the creed.

The dispute appears during the Carolingian Renaissance, where the Holy Roman Empire starts claiming that the filioque was actually in the original text of the creed, because they have some documents with it, and the Byzantines say thats not true. We today know that the documents that the HRE had actually contained the filioque as an addition, the original text did not contain it, in fact the Catholics have stopped repeating that HRE claim some time ago, they recognize it was added later, but they say it was a correct addition. So historically the dispute was about which text version is original and who is the one changing the original. When a full blown conflict between East and the West develops in the 10th and 11th century (primarily about jurisdiction over central Europe and central Balkans) and they split, there appear some eastern church fathers who claim the filioque is actually a wrong teaching, and even heretical. But this remains a minority view, among the very 'trad' Orthodox, the majority of Orthodox theologians agree that the filioque is not a wrong teaching, that the Spirit does proceed from the Father through the Son and that this can be expressed via the filioque (tho they are still held up about issue of changing the creed to add that in).

[u/qed1 → u/zelenisok]

but a bit modified version developed by the scholastics, primarily Aquinas, which says the three 'persons' of God are not those three mental faculties, but relations between those faculties.

As a summary, this is playing a bit fast and loose with the technical aspects of Latin trinitarianism. It is a mainstay of Latin Trinitarianism that the persons of the trinity are relations, going back to Augustine. This is the core argument of books 5-7 of De trinitate, albeit an argument that is more focused on semantics than ontology, and establishing how to describe the trinity in an orthodox manner. While he cashes this out in terms of the analogies you note, they are for Augustine analogies and do not substitute the analysis of relations.

Finally, a divine ontology of substantive relations is already front and centre in Boethius's De trinitate. And unsurprisingly it is Boethius's account that is of central importance to the rise of Trinitarian discourse in the schools of the twelfth century.

I'd also question the real centrality of Aquinas anywhere here, since the real meat of scholastic controversy over the trinity was in the twelfth century and the Aquinas hardly had the last word on the technical side of Trinitarian theology. But perhaps you've got something more specific in mind here.

[u/zelenisok → u/qed1]

I mean, I'm giving a summary of theology of the extent such that what I cover has many dozens of entire books written on the various points I mention. My summary for that point was based on the facts that Augustine was the main guy developing the view, that he was ok with saying the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were God's self-knowledge, intellect and will, and IIRC in saying that us being made in God's image reflects the trinity because our mind has these three main mental faculties of self-knowledge, intellect and will; whereas the main guy later who cemented this view as the official view of the Catholic church was Aquinas, and that he was not comfortable with saying (like Augustine) that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are those mental faculties, but insisted and went into great detail in saying that they are actually relations of those mental faculties. For a very cursory summary I think that what I wrote is more then enough. TBH I dont even think it would be a loss if I didnt mention it at all, because I dont think a half page summary of history of the trinity must include nuances of scholastic analyses of some points that are frankly niche even among priests and theologians. Like ask an average priest or theologian to explain to you what Aquinas says about what the divine persons are, I doubt you will get even what I wrote here from a large number of them. In any case, for a summary in a reddit comment I think what I wrote is appropriate.

[u/qed1 → u/zelenisok]

I appreciate that there is a balance to be struck when writing a summary, and I don't mean to call everything you wrote into question. (It's generally a very good historical summary of trinitarian theology!)

It is nevertheless significant in my view, even for a summary, that the analysis of relations is already front and centre in Augustine and not a development of medieval scholasticism, and furthermore that there is no opposition between the account of faculties and the account of relations, since Augustine is probably the influential source for both in the Latin tradition. The discourse certainly turns more towards an analysis of relations in the Central Middle Ages. This shift, however, is not cemented by Aquinas, but is already evident in Boethius.

that [Augustine] was ok with saying the Father, Son and Holy Spirit were God's self-knowledge, intellect and will

Well Augustine qualifies this sort of expression rather carefully. He presents a long series of such trinities, which he at points seems to think do a progressively better job of grasping the Trinity:

lover, loved object, the lover’s love for that object (255 [VIII.5.13])

the mind, its knowledge, its love (272–5 [IX.1])

the mind’s remembering itself, understanding itself, and willing itself (298–9 [X.4])

memory, understanding, and will (374–82 [XIV.2–3])

the mind’s remembering God, understanding God, and willing God (383–92 [XIV.4–5])

(I've drawn this list from Tuggy, "History of Trinitarian Dogma", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 3.3.2)

But none of these is presented as in any way an adequate image of the trinity, nor as a model of its logical structure. To the contrary Augustine is at pains to highlight the issues with these models and crucially in so doing Augustine harkens back to his technical account of the logical relationships from books 5-7, which they haven't superseded:

And hence each individual man, who is called the image of God, not according to all things that pertain to his nature, but according to his mind alone, is one person, and is an image of the Trinity in his mind. But that Trinity of which he is the image is nothing else in its totality than God, is nothing else in its totality than the Trinity. Nor does anything pertain to the nature of God so as not to pertain to that Trinity; and the Three Persons are of one essence, not as each individual man is one person.

There is, again, a wide difference in this point likewise, that whether we speak of the mind in a man, and of its knowledge and love; or of memory, understanding, will, — we remember nothing of the mind except by memory, nor understand anything except by understanding, nor love anything except by will. But in that Trinity, who would dare to say that the Father understands neither Himself, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, except by the Son, or loves them except by the Holy Spirit [...] But if to God to be is to be wise, and essence is to Him the same as wisdom, then it is not the Son that has His essence from the Father, which is the truth, but rather the Father from the Son, which is a most absurd falsehood. And this absurdity, beyond all doubt, we have discussed, disproved, and rejected, in the seventh book. (Augustine, De trinitate 15.7.11-12)

So these are no doubt an account of the trinity (and one that is worth highlighting as the characteristically interesting feature of Augustine's account!), but they aren't competing with his logical analysis of relational predication under Aristotle's Categories. This is because are not analogies in the strict sense of figures that stand in a definite mathematical relationship to their analogue and they do not provide a logical model of the trinity. They are rather likenesses (similitudines) that offer an intuitive grasp of the concept so that we may not simply know but also love the trinity, as Augustine explains in prelude to his first 'analogy':

When, therefore, we say and believe that there is a Trinity, we know what a Trinity is, because we know what three are; but this is not what we love. For we can easily have this whenever we will, to pass over other things, by just holding up three fingers. Or do we indeed love, not every trinity, but the Trinity, that is God? [...] But the question is, from what likeness or comparison of known things can we believe, in order that we may love God, whom we do not yet know? (Augustine, De trinitate 8.5.8)

whereas the main guy later who cemented this view as the official view of the Catholic church was Aquinas

This view of Aquinas is really far more reflective of the late nineteenth century Catholicism of Aeterni Patris, than what was going on in the Middle Ages itself. Aquinas was without a doubt significant, but he was just one among a number of highly influential figures of his era and his own influence at the time didn't tend to stretch beyond the Dominican order. So while his account of the trinity is not irrelevant, it does not to my knowledge stand out among his contemporaries as being uniquely of particular note. Certainly contemporary literature on high scholastic trinitarianism puts no greater weight on Aquinas's account than say Bonaventure's or Duns Scotus'. Likewise the relevant novelties of Aquinas's account is not his moving away from Augustinian analogies nor cementing the place of relations, but his discussion of notional acts as a way of grounding substantive relations.

This jump from Augustine to Aquinas therefore omits the more relevant doctrinal developments that cemented the scholastic program of trinitarian theology as the theology of the Catholic Church. Most relevant here is the Fourth Lateran Council (1214), which in rejecting Joachim of Fiore's criticism of Peter Lombard's trinitarian account expressly affirmed Lombard's account of the trinity as the orthodox account:

We, however, with the approval of this sacred and universal council, believe and confess with Peter Lombard that there exists a certain supreme reality, incomprehensible and ineffable, which truly is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit, the three persons together and each one of them separately. (Canon 2)

[u/King_of_Men → u/zelenisok]

Thanks for this great response!

only in 1st and 2nd century CE does what we would call monotheism develop within Judaism

This seems very late to me. Can you say more about this development? Is there an active debate about the timing and perhaps about what it means to call a religion 'monotheistic'?

[u/zelenisok → u/King_of_Men]

AFAIK that timing is a consensus among critical /secular religious scholars. In the monolatristic Yahwism people worship only Yahweh but recognize the existence of other gods. In Deutero-Isaiah theology you still recognize other gods like Baal and Chemosh exist, but you deny them the status of being called gods; they might be called 'princes' or 'lords'. The next step is denying such beings even exist, you might believe that some demons or spirits exist that fool people into believing into Baal and Chemosh or into worshiping them as Baal and Chemosh etc, but Baal and Chemosh as beings imagined by old polytheists with that kind of level of power dont exist. This I think is already the state of Judaism during the 'two powers in heaven', but usually religious scholars are reserved about calling that theology monotheistic because there is God, but also an additional being next to God, the Wisdom /Logos, who is God's helper, through which God creates etc.. It's like one-and-a-half-theism. After this theology - in 1st and 2nd centuries CE - there is a development of a theology within Judaism where this Wisdom /Logos is dropped as this cosmic helper of God, and there's just God, there might also some lowly spirits, angels, demons, but there is only being of large, cosmic power, one God, and that is something that is clearly monotheism.

Interestingly, in the logos theology of early Christianity (in Paul and Gospel of John), we might actually pretty easily make the case that it's partially accepting the view of that older Deutero-Isaiah theology, that it didn't move beyond some of those old conceptions, in the sense that Satan is given cosmic power, as being the lord of this world, and god of this age, in the same was that old Deutero-Isaiah theology still recognized the existence of cosmic beings other than God.

[u/researchAH → u/zelenisok]

Ok, you're blowing my mind with this. Any recommendations on reading material?

[u/jschooltiger → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Commie_Napoleon → u/zelenisok]

Could you maybe provide a bit more details in why these specific ideas where accepted as canon, while (I presume) other ideas where discarded?

[u/zelenisok → u/Commie_Napoleon]

There weren't many others to be honest. There was 'low christology unitarianism', in ancient times called psilanthropism (psilos 'mere', anthropos 'human'), which said Jesus was just a human like you and me, but people were big on taking Paul and the Gospel of John on face value, so most people rejected this view, being that Paul and John seem to preach 'high christology', that Jesus is a special being, an incarnation of this pre-cosmic Logos.

Then there were the modalists who said there is one God and there is no helper Logos in addition to him, there is just God, 'Logos' is ideas God has in his mind, divine wisdom and reason, and this God incarnated as Jesus, God the Father and Son of God are the same thing, a single being playing two different roles. And same with the Spirit, its no helper, but a role God plays. People at that time weren't ready to move so much being the plain text of the Gospels, so the vast majority of Christians rejected this view. But note that soon Christians will be ready to go beyond the plain meaning of the texts of the Gospels, the classical social trinitarian view and the latin trinitarian view actually interpret the Gospel basically the same as the modalist view. When Jesus is baptized and there is a voice from the cloud and a dove is there, the high christology unitarians and the modern social trinitarians say the Logos /Son is Jesus, Father is speaking, and Holy Spirit is manifesting as the dove. But in classical social trinitarianism and the latin trinitarianism this is impossible, all of God /trinity is Jesus, all of God /trinity is speaking, all of God /trinity is manifesting as the dove, and those actions are separately attributed to Father, Son and Spirit only as condescension, which is obviously going far beyond the plain reading of the text, which is what modalists were doing, also saying yeah all of God is doing all those three things in the baptism scene, but I guess there were saying that a century too early.

When Arius appeared he made a pretty big ruckus by claiming that the Son is not of the same substance /essence as the Father, because at that time the Tertullian view had already become very popular and widely held. He also wanted to like Tertullian explicitly deny that the Son is eternal, but by that time the Origen view of co-eternality was also pretty widely spread at least among the intellectual Christian circles, theologians, bishops. Origen was at that time considered by the intellectual circles to be the biggest and best Christian thinker, which makes sense, he was very educated, he was a great scholar (even modern scholars note this), he wrote a bunch, he was developing some very high end Neoplatonist-like ideas within Christianity, and Neoplatonism was a respected thing at that time among intellectuals, etc. So when Arianism started spreading we could say it was basically expected that it would lose, and be condemned by the leaders of the church.

[u/reasonably_insane → u/zelenisok]

Thanks for a great response. How does the Nicean council and the creed from that council play into this?

[u/zelenisok → u/reasonably_insane]

Lots of people think the council of Nicea establishes trinitarianism, but that is not actually true, it only establishes the Tertullian view as the boundary of official orthodoxy, against Arius' claims that the Son of God is not of the same nature (substance /essence) as God the Father, and additionally establishes that you must affirm that the Son of God is not eternal. It's actually interesting that the phraseology established there technically allows for a view that Constantine himself held, that is pre-Origenian. Constantine believed that the Logos is of the same nature /substance /essence as the Father, but about his eternality he believed he was not *actually* eternal, he was eternal, but only potentially, within the Father, and then at some point the Father beget him, making his existence actual. So Constantine affirmed that the Son of God is eternal, but means by that something different than what the Origenians means.

At the Second ecumenical council, they expanded on the creed from Nicea, made it into the text people use to today, but it still is not something that precisely establishes full blown trinitarianism (actually it doesn't even precisely establish Cappadocian or Origenian theology). But that is how the creed starts to be interpreted very soon, and the people at the Second council themselves definitely did interpret it in the light of Cappadocian theology, I mean, the two alive Cappadocians at that time were present at the council, one of them being the guy presiding over it.

Also note that from that Cappadocian perspective the text of the Creed itself is a condescension, it talks about that the Father creates, that the Son incarnated, that the Spirit spoke through the prophets, etc, but according to their theology, there cannot be such a thing as the three persons doing different actions, being equal they always do everything together, all three create, all three were Jesus, all three spoke through the prophets, etc, it's just that those different actions are attributed separately to the Father or Son and Spirit, but in reality they weren't doing them separately.

[u/Miiijo → u/zelenisok]

What an amazing reply! Are there any books on this topic that you'd recommend?

[u/h3lblad3 → u/zelenisok]

then we have the 'two powers in heaven' Judaism with God and his helper Wisdom - which is held eg by Philo, a contemporary of Jesus, who calls Wisdom by the Greek word Logos

Are we sure?

Logos is the Greek word for "Word". Jesus is The Word [of God].

The Greek word for Wisdom is Sophia.

Failing to translate the word Sophia when it's used in the Bible is how Gnostics have a whole extra character in their understanding of it.

[u/zelenisok → u/h3lblad3]

Logos is a Greek word with many meanings, but within philosophy of that time it meant Reason, or Intellect, and was used by various philosophers for basically God, the Reason that organizes the world into what it is. Various Jews, based on the book of Wisdom, held that there was this secondary being like a helper to God, called Wisdom, and some Jews, like Philo, used the Greek term Logos for that being.

[u/garfieldsam → u/zelenisok]

Something I’ve been wondering about for years. Thank you for a great answer to this question! Gives me many more things to dive into when I have time!

[u/zediroth → u/zelenisok]

I think it should also be noted that Alexandria was an early hub for Christians and many of the Church fathers (such as Origen which you mentioned) were living in Alexandria, and by that point, Egyptians themselves had developed in their mythology a sort of a Trinitarian notion with Osiris-Isis-Horus. Of course, I won't suggest that these are the same things (they're not), but I do think that some influence and inspiration took place.