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A distinctively Christian doctrine that God exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The unity of God is maintained by insisting that the three persons or modes of existence of God are of one substance. The doctrine arose in the early Church because strictly monotheistic Jews nevertheless affirmed the divinity of Christ (the Son) and the presence of God in the Church through the Holy Spirit. The functions of the persons of the Trinity, and the relationship between them, have been the subject of much controversy (eg the split between Eastern and Western Churches on the Filioque clause), but the trinitarian concept is reflected in most Christian worship.

POV-check

Within Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is a single Being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a perichoresis of three persons (personae, prosopa): Father (the Source, the Eternal Majesty); the Son (the eternal Logos or Word, incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth); and the Holy Spirit (the Paraclete or advocate). Since the 4th Century AD, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, this doctrine has been stated as "One God in Three Persons," all three of whom, as distinct and co-eternal "persons" or "hypostases," share a single Divine essence, being, or nature. Supporting the doctrine of the Trinity is known as Trinitarianism, and is opposed to the positions of Binitarianism (two deities/persons/aspects), and Unitarianism (one deity/person/aspect), and Modalism (Oneness) which are held by some Christian groups.

Scripture and tradition

The word "Trinity" comes from "Trinitas", a Latin abstract noun that most literally means "three-ness" (or "the property of occurring three at once"). The first recorded use of this Latin word was by Tertullian in about 200, to refer to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or, in general, to any set of three things.(Theophilius to Autolycus - 115-181 - introduced the word Trinity in his Book 2, chapter 15 on the creation of the 4th day).

The Greek term used for the Christian Trinity, "?????" The Sanskrit words, "Trimurti or Trinatha," has a similar meaning, as has "Dreifaltigkeit" in German, and many other words in other languages.

The New Testament does not use the word "?????"

The earliest Christians were noted for their insistence on the existence of one true God, in contrast to the polytheism of the prevailing culture. While maintaining strict monotheism, they believed also that the man Jesus Christ was at the same time something more than a man (a belief reflected, for instance, in the opening verses of the Letter to the Hebrews, which describe him as the brightness of God's glory and bearing the express image of God's own being, and, yet more explicitly, in the prologue of the Gospel according to John) and also with the implications of the presence and power of God that they believed was among them and that they referred to as the Holy Spirit. The Epistle to the Colossians even goes so far as to state that "in Jesus lives all the fullness of Deity bodily" .

The importance for the first Christians of their faith in God, whom they called Father, in Jesus Christ, whom they saw as the Son of God, the Word of God (Gospel of John), King, Saviour (Martyrdom of Polycarp), Master (First Apology of Justin Martyr), and in the Holy Spirit is expressed in formulas that link all three together, such as those in the Gospel according to Matthew, the Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19); and in the Second Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Conclusions about how best to explain the association of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit with the one God developed gradually and not without controversy. Some Christians still debate the differences found in the New Testament, where Christ declared "I and my Father are one," but also prayed on the cross, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?), which is often explained that first sentence refers to Jesus' divine nature and the second one to his human nature; and still others (not the mainstream view) say that it is a ridiculous notion that this man is yelling at himself that he is abandoning himself.

In 325, the Council of Nicaea adopted a term for the relationship between the Son and the Father that from then on was seen as the hallmark of orthodoxy; it declared that the Son is "of the same substance" as the Father. It is also worthy to note that this council was set up and organized by the Roman Emperor Constantine I, who for years remained a Christian catechumen and was not baptized until near the end of his life. He was more interested in solidifying his empire under one religion rather than in taking sides in the debate between the Arians and the orthodox. In adopting non-biblical language, the council's intent was to preserve what they thought the Church had always believed, that Jesus is fully God, coeternal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.

Historically, the lack of an explicit scriptural basis for the Trinity was viewed as a disquieting problem,fact and there is evidence indicating that one mediaeval Latin writer, while purporting to quote from the First Epistle of John, inserted a passage now known as the Comma Johanneum which explicitly references the Trinity. It may have begun as a marginal note quoting a homily of Cyprian that was inadvertently taken into the main body of the text by a copyist.Wallace, Daniel B. "The Comma Johanneum and Cyprian", accessed online 16 February 2006. The Comma found its way into several later copies, and was eventually back-translated into Greek and included in the third edition of the Textus Receptus which formed the basis of the King James Version. Erasmus, the compiler of the Textus Receptus, noticed that the passage was not found in any of the Greek manuscripts at his disposal and refused to include it until presented with an example containing it, which he rightly suspected was concocted after the fact.Bruce M. Oxford University, 1968 p.101 Isaac Newton, known mainly for his scientific and mathematical discoveries, noted that many ancient authorities failed to quote the Comma when it would have provided substantial support for their arugments, suggesting it was a later addition.An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture Modern textual criticism has since concurred with his findings;

Baptism as the beginning lesson

Many Christians begin to learn about the Trinity through knowledge of Baptism. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are structured around profession of the Trinity, and are solemnly professed by converts to Christianity when they receive baptism, and in the Church's liturgy, particularly when celebrating the Eucharist. One or both of these creeds are often used as brief summations of Christian faith by mainstream denominations.

Baptism itself is generally conferred with the Trinitarian formula, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" ; and Basil the Great (330–379) declared: "We are bound to be baptized in the terms we have received, and to profess faith in the terms in which we have been baptized." "This is the Faith of our baptism", the First Council of Constantinople declared (382), "that teaches us to believe in the Name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. According to this Faith there is one Godhead, Power, and Being of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

may be taken to indicate that baptism was associated with this Trinitarian formula from the earliest decades of the Church's existence.Some groups, such as Oneness Pentecostals, demur from the Trinitarian view on baptism. For example, Kittel is cited where he is speaking of the phrase "in the name" (Greek: ) as used in the baptisms recorded in Acts:

The distinctive feature of Christian baptism is that it is administered in Christ , or in the name of Christ . Conybeare, has questioned the authenticity of , however, the majority of scholars of New Testament textual criticism accept the authenticity of the passage. There are no variant manuscripts regarding the formula, and the extant form of the passage is attested in the Didache and other patristic works of the first and second centuries; for most textual critical scholars this is sufficient evidence to prove authenticity. The formula is found in the Didache7:1, 3 online, IgnatiusEpistle to the Philippians, 2:13 online, TertullianOn Baptism 8:6 online, Against Praxeas, 26:2 online, HippolytusAgainst Noetus, 1:14 online, CyprianSeventh Council of Carthage online, and Gregory ThaumaturgusA Sectional Confession of Faith, 13:2 online. Though the formula has early attestation, the Acts of the Apostles only mentions believers being baptized "in the name of Jesus Christ" (2:38, 10:48) and "in the name of the Lord Jesus" (8:16, 19:5). .It is self-evident that Father, Son and Spirit are here linked in an indissoluble threefold relationship.Kittel, 3:108.

In the synoptic Gospels the baptism of Jesus himself is often interpreted as a manifestation of all three Persons of the Trinity: "And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased." (Matthew 3:16-17, RSV).

Scriptural texts cited as implicit support for the doctrine of the Trinity

This is a partial list.

• "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (see Trinitarian formula). - As the context shows, this implied the Tetragrammaton in Isaiah 6:1 refers to Jesus.
  

  "For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form"
  

  "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."
  

  "You heard me say, 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I."
  

  "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."
  

  "My prayer is not for them alone.
  

  "For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live;
  

  "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."
  

  "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus"
  

Ontology of the Trinity

Historical view and usage

The Trinitarian view has been affirmed as an article of faith by the Nicene (325/381) and Athanasian creeds (circa 500), which attempted to standardize belief in the face of disagreements on the subject. These creeds were formulated and ratified by the Church of the third and fourth centuries in reaction to heterodox theologies concerning the Trinity and/or Christ. The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, revised in 381 by the second of these councils, is professed by Orthodox Christianity and, with one addition (Filioque clause), the Roman Catholic Church, and has been retained in some form by most Protestant denominations.

The Nicene Creed, which is a classic formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, uses "homoousios" (Greek: of the same essence) of the relation of the Son's relationship with the Father. This word differs from that used by non-trinitarians of the time, "homoiousios" (Greek: of similar essence), by a single Greek letter, "one iota", a fact proverbially used to speak of deep divisions, especially in theology, expressed by seemingly small verbal differences.

One of the (probably three) Church councils that in 264-266 condemned Paul of Samosata for his Adoptionist theology also condemned the term "homoousios" in the sense he used it, with the result that, as the Catholic Encyclopedia article about him remarks, "The objectors to the Nicene doctrine in the fourth century made copious use of this disapproval of the Nicene word by a famous council."www.newadvent.org/cathen/11589a.htm

Moreover, the meanings of "ousia" and "hypostasis" overlapped at the time, so that the latter term for some meant essence and for others person. Athanasius of Alexandria (293-373) helped to clarify the terms.

The terminology of Godhead concerns the nature of God and so is largely distinct from that which concerns specifically the interrelations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One God

God is one, and the Godhead a single being: The Hebrew Scriptures lift this one article of faith above others, and surround it with stern warnings against departure from this central issue of faith, and of faithfulness to the covenant God had made with them. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD" (the Shema), "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" and, "Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel and his redeemer the LORD of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; Any formulation of an article of faith which does not insist that God is solitary, that divides worship between God and any other, or that imagines God coming into existence rather than being God eternally, is not capable of directing people toward the knowledge of God, according to the trinitarian understanding of the Old Testament. The same insistence is found in the New Testament: "...there is none other God but one" . The "other gods" warned against are therefore not gods at all, but substitutes for God, and so are, according to St. Paul, simply mythological or are demons.

So, in the trinitarian view, the common conception which thinks of the Father and Christ as two separate beings, is incorrect. In Christianity, it is understood that statements about a solitary god are intended to distinguish the Hebraic understanding from the polytheistic view, which see divine power as shared by several separate beings, beings which can, and do, disagree and have conflicts with each other. Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants — In the Oriental Orthodox theology, the Chalcedonian formulation is rejected in favor of the position that the union of the two natures, though unconfused, births a third nature: redeemed humanity, the new creation. However, as laid out in the Athanasian Creed, only the Father is unbegotten and non-proceeding.

It has been stated that because God exists in three persons, God has always loved, and there has always existed perfectly harmonious communion between the three persons of the Trinity. A possible interpretation of Genesis 1:26 is that God's relationships in the Trinity is mirrored in man by the ideal relationship between husband and wife, two persons becoming one flesh, as described in Eve's creation later in the chapter. citation needed Some Trinitarian Christians support their position with the Comma Johanneum described above even though it is widely regarded as inauthentic and was not used patristically.

Mutually indwelling

A useful explanation of the relationship of the distinguishable persons of God is called perichoresis, from Greek going around, envelopment (written with a long O, omega - some mistakenly associate it with the Greek word for dance, which however is spelled with a short O, omicron). www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf209.ii.v.ii.iii.html

This co-indwelling may also be helpful in illustrating the trinitarian conception of salvation. God is not parcelled out into three portions, as modalists and others contend.

Eternal generation and procession

Trinitarianism affirms that the Son is "begotten" (or "generated") of the Father and that the Spirit "proceeds" from the Father, but the Father is "neither begotten nor proceeds." The argument over whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, or from the Father and the Son, was one of the catalysts of the Great Schism, in this case concerning the Western addition of the Filioque clause to the Nicene Creed.

This language is often considered difficult because, if used regarding humans or other created things, it would necessarily imply time and change; citation needed

Economic versus Ontological Trinity

Economical subordination is implied by the genitive of terms like "Father of", "Son of", and "Spirit of". The main points, however, are that "there is one God because there is one Father" and that, while the Son and Spirit both derive their existence from the Father, the communion between the Three, being a relationship of Divine Love, is such that there is no subordination according to substance. and describes how the Trinity operates within history in terms of the roles or functions performed by each of the Persons of the Trinity.

• Ontological Trinity: This speaks of the Trinity "within itself" .
  

Or more simply - the ontological Trinity (who God is) and the economic Trinity (what God does). Only the Father is neither begotten nor proceeding (See Athanasian Creed), but is alone "unoriginate" and eternally communicates the Divine Being to the Word, the Son, by "generation" and to the Spirit by "spiration," in that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father" and in the words of some {Eastern} theologians, "rests on the Son" as seen in the baptism of Jesus.

Son begotten, not created

Because the Son is begotten, not made, the substance of his person is that of Yahweh, of deity. St. Irenaeus of Lyons was the final major theologian of the second century. He writes "the Father is God, and the Son is God, for whatever is begotten of God is God."

Extending the analogy, it might be said, similarly, that whatever is generated (procreated) of humans is human. As it is, the doctrine of the Trinity is directly tied up with Christology.

Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant distinctions

The Western (Roman Catholic) tradition is more prone to make positive statements concerning the relationship of persons in the Trinity. nevertheless the Augustinian West is inclined to think in philosophical terms concerning the rationality of God's being, and is prone on this basis to be more open than the East to seek philosophical formulations which make the doctrine more intelligible. By contrast, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the perfect love that exists between the Father and the Son: and as in the case of the Son, this love must share the perfection of real existence. Therefore, as reflected in the filioque clause inserted into the Nicene Creed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from both the Father "and the Son". (It would also be appropriate according to Western teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.)

The Eastern Orthodox church holds that the filioque clause, i.e., the added words "and the Son" (in Latin, filioque), constitutes heresy, or at least profound error. At this rate, there would be an infinite number of persons of the Godhead, unless some persons were subordinate so that their love were less perfect and therefore need not share the perfection of real existence.

Anglicans have made a commitment in their Lambeth Conference, to provide for the use of the creed without the filioque clause in future revisions of their liturgies, in deference to the issues of Conciliar authority raised by the Orthodox.

Most Protestant groups that use the creed also include the filioque clause. However, the issue is usually not controversial among them because their conception is often less exact than is discussed above (exceptions being the Presbyterian Westminster Confession 2:3, the London Baptist Confession 2:3, and the Lutheran Augsburg Confession 1:1-6, which specifically address those issues). The rhetorical tools of Greek philosophy, especially of Neoplatonism, are evident in the language adopted to explain the church's rejection of Arianism and Adoptionism on one hand (teaching that Christ is inferior to the Father, or even that he was merely human), and Docetism and Sabellianism on the other hand (teaching that Christ was identical to God the Father, or an illusion). and he contributed much to the speculative development of the doctrine of the Trinity as it is known today, in the West; the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzus) are more prominent in the East. The imprint of Augustinianism is found, for example, in the western Athanasian Creed, which, although it bears the name and reproduces the views of the fourth century opponent of Arianism, was probably written much later.

These controversies were for most purposes settled at the Ecumenical councils, whose creeds affirm the doctrine of the Trinity.

According to the Athanasian Creed, each of these three divine Persons is said to be eternal, each almighty, none greater or less than another, each God, and yet together being but one God, So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say; There are three Gods or three Lords. -- Athanasian Creed, line 20.

Some feminist theologians refer to the persons of the Holy Trinity with more gender-neutral language, such as "Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer (or Sanctifier)."

Modalists attempted to resolve the mystery of the Trinity by holding that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are merely modes, or roles, of God Almighty. This view is known as Sabellianism, and was rejected as heresy by the Ecumenical Councils although it is still prevalent today among denominations known as "Oneness" and "Apostolic" Pentecostal Christians, the largest of these sects being the United Pentecostal Church. Even now, ecumenical dialogue between Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic, the Assyrian Church of the East and trinitarian Protestants, seeks an expression of trinitarian and christological doctrine which will overcome the extremely subtle differences that have largely contributed to dividing them into separate communities. However a number of nontrinitarian groups, both throughout history and today, identify themselves as Christians but reject the doctrine of the Trinity in any form, arguing that theirs was the original pre-Nicean understanding. Some ancient sects, such as the Ebionites, said that Jesus was not a "Son of God", but rather an ordinary man who was a prophet. These include Jehovah's Witnesses, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Christadelphians, Christian Scientists, the Unification Church, the Christian Unitarians, Oneness Pentecostals, Iglesia ni Cristo, among others. These groups differ from one another in their view of God, but all alike reject the doctrine of the Trinity.

Criticism of the doctrine includes the argument its "mystery" is essentially an inherent irrationality, where the persons of God are claimed to share completely a single divine substance, the "being of God", and yet not partake of each others' identity. The New Catholic Encyclopedia, for example, says, "The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught explicitly in the Old Testament"The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967 edition, Vol. XIV, page 299), and The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia adds, "The doctrine is not explicitly taught in the New Testament"citation needed. The question, however, of why such a supposedly central doctrine to the Christian faith would never have been explicitly stated in scripture or taught in detail by Jesus himself was sufficiently important to 16th century historical figures such as Michael Servetus as to lead them to argue the question. The Geneva City Council, in accord with the judgment of the cantons of Zurich, Bern, Basel, and Schaffhausen, condemned Servetus to be burned at the stake for this, and for his opposition to infant baptism.

Debate over the biblical basis of the doctrine tends to revolve chiefly over the question of the deity of Jesus (see Christology). Those who reject the teaching for their part offer different explanations, arguing among other things that Jesus also rejected being called so little as good in deference to God (versus "the Father") (Mark 10:18), disavowed omniscience as the Son, "learned obedience" (Hebrews 5:8), and referred to ascending unto "my Father, and to your Father; In Theological Studies #26 (1965) p.545-73, Does the NT call Jesus God?, Raymond E. Brown wrote that Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19, , Mark 15:34, , John 20:17, Ephesians 1:17, 2 Corinthians 1:3, 1 Peter 1:3, John 17:3, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Ephesians 4:4-6, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, 2 Corinthians 13:14, 1 Timothy 2:5, John 14:28, Mark 13:32, Philippians 2:5-10, 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 are "texts that seem to imply that the title God was not used for Jesus" and are "negative evidence which is often somewhat neglected in Catholic treatments of the subject."

Trinitarians claim that these statements are based on the fact that Jesus existed as the Son of God in human flesh. Thus he is both God and man, who became "lower than the angels, for our sake" (Hebrews 2:6-8, Psalm 8:4-6) and who was tempted as humans are tempted, but did not sin (Hebrews 4:14-16).

Some Nontrinitarians counter the belief that the Son was limited only during his earthly life (Trinitarians believe, instead, that Christ retains full human nature even after his resurrection), by citing 1 Corinthians 11:3 ("the head of Christ is God" KJV), written after Jesus had returned to Heaven, thus placing him still in an inferior relation to the Father. This suggests that the holy spirit is only used to make up the threesome, lending support to the belief that the trinity was merely inherited from pre-christian religions and cultures rather than originating from study of the Bible.

The teaching is also pivotal to inter-religious disagreements with two of the other major faiths, Judaism and Islam; the former reject Jesus' divine mission entirely, the latter accepts Jesus as a human prophet just like Muhammad but rejects altogether the deity of Jesus. Many within Judaism and Islam also accuse Christian trinitarians of practicing polytheism, of believing in three gods rather than just one. Islam holds that because Allah is unique and absolute (the concept of tawhid) the Trinity is impossible and has even been condemned as polytheistic. (Qur'an, 112:1-4)

Other views of the Trinity

There have been numerous other views of the relations of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the most prominent include:

• Arius believed that the Son was subordinate to the Father, firstborn of all Creation. This view is very close to that of Jehovah's Witnesses.
  
• Ebionites believed that the Son was subordinate to the Father and nothing more than a special human.
  
• Marcion believed that there were two Deities, one of Creation / Hebrew Bible and one of the New Testament.
  
• Modalism states that God has taken numerous forms in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and that God has manifested Himself in three primary modes in regards to the salvation of mankind. Thus God is Father in creation (God created or begat a Son through the virgin birth), Son in redemption (God manifested Himself into or indwelt the begotten man Christ Jesus for the purpose of His death upon the cross), and Holy Spirit in regeneration (God's indwelling Spirit within the souls of Christian believers). It is held by its proponents that this view maintains the strict monotheism found in Judaism and the Old Testament scriptures.
  
• Swedenborgianism holds that the Trinity exists in One Person, the Lord God Jesus Christ. the Father as to His soul, the Son as to His body, and the Holy Spirit as to His activity in the world.
  
• The Urantia Book teaches that God is the first "Uncaused Cause" who is a personality that is omniscient, omnipresent, transcendent, infinite, eternal and omnipotent, but He is also a person of the Original Trinity - "The Paradise Trinity" who are the "First Source and Center, Second Source and Center, and Third Source and Center" or otherwise described as "God, The Eternal Son, and The Divine Holy Spirit". Each one of the Original Holy Trinity is a separate personality, but acting in function as a divine and First Trinity.
  
• Eutychianism holds that the divinity of the Son became human and the human became divine. Orthodox Trinitarianism holds these parts of the Son distinct.
  
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, aka "Mormons," hold that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three separate and distinct individuals , but can and do act together in perfect unity as a single monotheistic entity (the "Godhead") for the common purpose of saving mankind, Jesus Christ having received divine investiture of authority from Heavenly Father in the pre-existence. The Latter-day Saint doctrine on the Godhead comes directly from the First Vision of baptism of Jesus and Christ's prayers to God. Christ's statement that He and His Father are "one" is interpeted to mean one in purpose, which purpose they believe the Apostles were also to join (after their resurrection) as Christ prayed in His intercessory prayer: "...that they may be one, as we are."
  
• Docetism holds that the Son is not human, but wholly and only divine.
  
• Adoptionism holds that Jesus was chosen on the event of his baptism to be anointed by the Holy Spirit and became divine upon resurrection.
  
• Rastafarians are a rare non-Christian group to theorise about the Holy Trinity.
  
• Islam's Holy Book, the Quran, denounces:
  
  • the term "Trinity" (Sura 4:171)
    
  • a Trinity composed of Father, Son and Mary (Sura 5:116). Inclusion of Mary in the presumed trinity may have been due to either a quasi-Christian sect known as the Collyridians in Arabia who apparently believed that Mary was divine, or use of the title "Mother of God" to refer to Mary.
    

Theory of pagan origin and influence

Nontrinitarian Christians have long contended that the doctrine of the Trinity is a prime example of Christian borrowing from pagan sources. As evidence of this process, a comparison is often drawn between the Trinity and notions of a divine triad, found in pagan religions and Hinduism. Hinduism has a triad, i.e., Trimurti.

As far back as Babylonia, the worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was common. That influence was also prevalent in Egypt, Greece, and Rome in the centuries before, during, and after Christ. After the death of the apostles, many nontrinitarians contend that these pagan beliefs began to invade Christianity. (First and second century Christian writings reflect a certain belief that Jesus was one with God the Father, but anti-Trinitarians contend it was at this point that the nature of the oneness evolved from pervasive coexistence to identity.)

Some find a direct link between the doctrine of the Trinity, and the Egyptian theologians of Alexandria, for example. As evidence of this, critics of the doctrine point to the widely acknowledged synthesis of Christianity with platonic philosophy, which is evident in Trinitarian formulas that appeared by the end of the third century. Catholic doctrine became firmly rooted in the soil of Hellenism; At the same time, neo-Platonic trinities, such as that of the One, the Nous and the Soul, are not a trinity of consubstantial equals as in orthodox Christianity.

Nontrinitarians assert that Catholics must have recognized the pagan roots of the trinity, because the allegation of borrowing was raised by some disputants during the time that the Nicene doctrine was being formalized and adopted by the bishops. For example, in the 4th century Catholic Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra's writings, On the Holy Church,9 :

"Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God...These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him 'On the Three Natures'. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes and Plato." Marcellus was rejected by the Catholic Church for teaching a form of Sabellianism.

The early apologists, including Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Irenaeus, frequently discussed the parallels and contrasts between Christianity and the pagan and syncretic religions, and answered charges of borrowing from paganism in their apologetical writings. "Through the Son we have access to the Father in one Spirit" (Ephesians 2:18). It is given to humans through the Divine union with humanity in Jesus Christ who, although fully God, died for sinners "in the flesh" to accomplish their redemption, and this forgiveness, restoration, and friendship with God is made accessible through the gift to the Church of the Holy Spirit, who, being God, knows the Divine Essence intimately and leads and empowers the Christian to fulfill the will of God. In fact, while the oldest traditions hold that it is impossible to speculate concerning the being of God (see apophatic theology), yet those same traditions are particularly attentive to Trinitarian formulations, so basic to mere Christian faith is this doctrine considered to be.

Similarities in the 16th-century Jewish Kabbalah

In the late Kabbalistic tradition, originating in the city of Safed in the 16th century, an essential part of representations of the Tree of life or Etz Hayim is a set of three vertical lines of light, each line being headed by Sefirot, or degrees of altruistic quality at the top. It is obvious that Sefirot of Kether (Crown), Chochmah (Wisdom) and Binah (Understanding), i.e. Ancient One, Father and Mother, or even Chochmah, Binah and Tiphereth (Glory) as Son also have much similarity with a secret of Trinity. According to kabbalah through these mysterious lines—kav smol, kav yamin and kav emtsa'i?Heaven rules the soul's wishes and destiny.

Due in part to the apparent similarities between these Kabbalistic teachings and the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, Christian disputationalists sometimes attempted to use Kabbalah to convince Jews to convert to Christianity, and encouraged Christians to study Kabbalah in the belief that this would help them to do so. Needless to say, not many Jews were so convinced, and Jewish Kabbalists believe that, even though superficial similarities exist between the Christian Trinity and some parts of Kabbalah, these are distinct beliefs and properly understood one does not imply the other.

In popular culture

Trinity is the central female character in the Matrix trilogy. Morpheus as the Father, Neo as the Son, and Trinity as the Holy Spirit.

In the Valérian comics, the Trinity appeared as a tough, street-hardened police sergeant (Father), a hippie (Son) and a broken jukebox (Holy Spirit).

The Irish comedian Dave Allen famously satirised the Trinity as Big Daddy (Father), The Kid (Son) and Spook (Holy Spirit).

In the book Angela's Ashes there is a heart warming scene where Frank McCourt, as a child, mistakenly refers to the "Father, the Son, and the Holy Toast."

In the Fritz Lang film Metropolis, the city mayor Joh Fredersen represents the Father and the humble city proletariat as the Holy Spirit. The film ends in statement: The intermediator between brain Father and hands Holy Spirit is Heart (Son).

Also, in Postcolonial Theory, 'The Holy Trinity' is a term coined by Professor Robert J.C. Young, a well-known postcolonial critic currently based at NYU, with regards to the three main postcolonial theorists whose work constitutes much of the debate in this thriving and controversial field of study: Edward Said, Homi K Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.