The best way to understand the doctrine of ‘Trinity’ is to study its historical evolution. It took four Ecumenical Councils from year 325 CE till 451 CE, spread over more than 100 years and 450 years after Jesus Christ was put on the cross, for the doctrine to arrive in what is its current form.
Contrast all this to the simplicity and beauty of the Muslim creed, “There is no God but Allah!”
If we include the discussion about nature of Jesus also, it took 650 years after Jesus Christ was put on the cross, for the doctrine of Trinity to arrive in what is its current form.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica as it describes the sixth Ecumenical Council that presided over the nature of Jesus:
“The Third Council of Constantinople was held in (680–681), the sixth ecumenical council of the Christian church, summoned by the emperor Constantine IV and meeting at Constantinople.
Some eastern Christians, forbidden to talk of the concept of one nature of Christ, thought to enforce the unity of the person of Christ by talking of one will (thelema) and one operation (energeia) from the two natures. Persons holding this view were called Monothelites. Sergius, patriarch of Constantinople, and Honorius I, pope of Rome, appear to have embraced the Monothelite doctrine. The council of 680–681 condemned the Monothelites, among them Honorius, and asserted two wills and two operations.” According to the verdict Jesus was to be understood some sort of a ‘hybrid,’ for the lack of a better word, a perfect man and a perfect God, born to a virgin human mother without a divine mother, a picture and concept that human rationality cannot fathom, except through forced belief or faith!
No wonder, it has always amazed Muslims, why the Trinitarian Christians do not opt for something better. We extend a cordial invitation to all the Christian brethren and sisters in the words of the Holy Quran, “Say, ‘O People of the Book! come to a word equal between us and you — that we worship none but Allah, and that we associate no partner with Him, and that some of us take not others for Lords besides Allah.’ But if they turn away, then say, ‘Bear witness that we have submitted to God.’ ” (Al Quran 3:65)
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, as it describes the main issue for the second Council, which was the status of the Holy Spirit, “The second ecumenical council of the Christian church, summoned by the emperor Theodosius I and meeting in Constantinople. Doctrinally, it promulgated what became known to the church as the Nicene Creed; it also declared finally the Trinitarian doctrine of the equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son.”[3]
The Second Ecumenical Council whose additions to the original Nicene Creed lay at the heart of one of the theological disputes associated with the East-West Schism. (Illustration, 879-882 AD, from manuscript, Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, Bibliothèque nationale de France)
(And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.)The word was first added at the Third Council of Toledo (589) and spread throughout Western Christianity. It has been an ongoing source of conflict between the East and West, contributing to the East-West Schism of 1054 and proving an obstacle to attempts to reunify the two sides.[4][5]
Trinity icon by Andrei Rublev, c. 1400 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)
THE THIRD COUNCIL
“The fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church, held in Chalcedon (modern Kadiköy, Tur.) in 451. Convoked by the emperor Marcian, it was attended by about 520 bishops or their representatives and was the largest and best-documented of the early councils. It approved the creed of Nicaea (325), the creed of Constantinople (381; subsequently known as the Nicene Creed), two letters of Cyril against Nestorius, which insisted on the unity of divine and human persons in Christ, and the Tome of Pope Leo I confirming two distinct natures in Christ and rejecting the Monophysite doctrine that Christ had only one nature. The council then explained these doctrines in its own confession of faith.”[6]
References
- “Council of Nicaea.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 02 Jan. 2010 ca.com/EBchecked/topic/413817/Council-of-Nicaea>.
- Prof. William R Cook. The Catholic Church: A History. The Teaching Company, 2009. Page 20.
- “Council of Constantinople.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 02 Jan. 2010 ca.com/EBchecked/topic/134014/Council-of-Constantinople>.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque
- http://knol.google.com/k/zia-shah/different-sects-of-christianity/1qhnnhcumbuyp/171#
- “councils of Ephesus.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 02 Jan. 2010 ca.com/EBchecked/topic/189564/councils-of-Ephesus>.
- Prof. William R Cook. The Catholic Church: A History. The Teaching Company, 2009. Page 20.
- “Council of Chalcedon.” Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 02 Jan. 2010 ca.com/EBchecked/topic/104580/Council-of-Chalcedon>.
Categories: CHRISTIANITY
“Islam is a religion that is essentially rationalistic in the widest sense of this term…and the dogma of unity of God has always been proclaimed therein with a grandeur a majesty, an invariable purity and with a note of sure conviction, which it is hard to find surpassed outside the pale of Islam….A creed so precise, so stripped of all theological complexities and consequently so accessible to the ordinary understanding might be expected to possess and does indeed possess a marvelous power of winning its way into the consciences of men.” [Edward Montet, ‘La Propagande Chretienne et ses Adversaries Musulmans,’ Paris 1890. (Also in T.W. Arnold in ‘The Preaching of Islam,’ London 1913)]