The Entirely of Christianity Defined by One Concept: The Holy Trinity

Understanding the concept of the Holy Trinity allows one to understand everything about Christianity and its followers. The idea of the Trinity may have a base within the New Testament, encompassed in the 1 John 5:7-8. "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one."

That these two verses are not found in any early version of the New Testament has been the focus of a tremendous amount of criticism, but is not going to be the focus here. That it may or may not be in the Bible is actually not relevant to understanding Christianity. Two points about the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity are relevant to this understanding. First: the earliest Christians did not need this doctrine in order to believe that Jesus was their savior and would provide them everlasting life. Second: Christians after the third century could not grasp their theology without accepting this doctrine.

Trinity Part One: The Composition

An issue first arose when Christians read the first verse of the Gospel of John. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This verse implied something that was entirely foreign to Judaism. Early Christians understood "The Word" to be a reference to Jesus. This verse said Jesus always was. It became known as the doctrine of Pre-Existence; namely that Jesus existed prior to his descending to Earth in the form of a man. Judaism had never considered the possibility that anyone or anything existed alongside God.

In the Second Century the issue of pre-existence became a point of discussion among Christians as they tried to sort out who exactly was Jesus Christ. Equally as important, they had to answer a question posed from the outside as they attempted to win new converts. Why worship just the son of God? Why not just worship God(s)? After all, that is what nearly all pagans were already doing. It was an intriguing question asked by Romans who loosely understood the monotheism of the Jews and questioned why Christians were speaking more about the son than the Jewish God they claimed to also believe in. The response to this question would define Christianity forever after.

However; even before the answer to this question could be formulated in detail, another question arose. In Pagan Rome the Gods were proactive. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune were thrown by the Gods themselves. They were everywhere, from trees to lakes to public buildings and in cities, country and battlefields. In addition, the Hebrew Bible stories seemed to also include a proactive God who talked directly with quite a few people on a personal level. God talked directly to all these people. Why wasn't he talking directly to me?

Christians answered the first issue by asserting that Jesus was God, on par with (superior to) any God in the Roman world. They answered the second part by asserting the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was the replacement for all the active deities of Paganism.

These responses presented some obvious problems. At the time a number of Christian teachers and sects were using the pre-existence doctrine to assert Jesus was never really human or even that the Jewish God was not the only deity, and not even the good one. And at the other end was the Jewish concept that the messiah was entirely human and not divine at all, only anointed by him.

Thus, the early Christian theologians had to find one solution to five separate challenges:
Why not worship just the God in Heaven rather than his son?
If God had a personal relationship with humanity, where was he and what did he do?
The Jesus described in the early Gospels was very much human. How could this be God?
If Jesus was God, who was God that was still in Heaven?
If Jesus was Begotten from God then wasn't their a time before this when there was no Son of God?

Trinity Part Two: The Solution

The solution, of course, was the doctrine of the Trinity. God was Jesus. Jesus the man had always existed as God in Heaven. God was the Holy Spirit. God was in Heaven even while Jesus was on Earth.

The process of working out this solution took nearly a century, primarily because it seemed to propose four mutually inconsistent assertions. In fact, the proposed solution would be accepted as true even before the reasoning behind it was fully worked out. In the intervening period Christian theologians essentially just insisted that followers accept and believe the concept. This was worked out in the Ecumenical Councils of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. Out of these came a creed or statement of belief that all Christians were required to adhere to. At the same time theologians were clarifying and synthesizing the concept into a full fledged doctrine that closed off all of the separate challenges and questions.

It would actually take two doctrines to fully work out all the details. The Doctrine of the Trinity would explain who God is. The Doctrine of the Incarnation would explain what happened to the Son of God when he descended to Earth. It was finally the great Church theologian Augustine that would develop the final and complete view of the concept. He did this with seven statements:

The Father is God
The Son is God
The Holy Spirit is God
The Father is not the Son
The Son is not the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is not the Father
There is ONE God.

This would be the doctrine of the Trinity that all orthodox Christians would come to accept.

Trinity Part Three: The Repercussions

There are five striking aspects to the Trinitarian argument. The first is that it cannot be conceived, imagined, depicted or described by anyone, including the theologians that are convinced of its truthfulness. It is described as a "mystery," known in Christian doctrine as "the Incomprehensible God." Artists, the great describers of the indescribable throughout history have all gotten it wrong. Not a single artist has ever captured the concept that three separate entities existing as one. And yet it is believed without so much as a critical pause.

The second aspect is that while mysterious and incomprehensible, somehow these theologians have described it. The two theologies contradict themselves.

The third aspect is that while the Son was begotten from the Father, there was never a time when the Son did not exist. There is a creator and created but never a time when there was no created. This is a contradiction on every level.

Fourth; the Trinitarian description is an entirely manmade description. It did not simply drop down from on high. The two hundred year working out process of the concept is documented by Church history. This is a "Doctrine," a statement of truth for every Christian to believe and it was devised by "very human" Church fathers and converted into a creed at the First Council of Nicaea. Afterwards, every orthodox Christian was required to recite and believe that creed.

The final and most peculiar feature of the entire Trinitarian concept is that it is unnecessary for core Christian belief. God created his Son. He created Humans. Humans sinned. God sent his Son to become a human and take the punishment necessary for the redemption of this sin by anyone who believes. Whether Christ pre-existed or not is irrelevant. Whether he was fully human, fully divine, or both is also irrelevant. And yet, the sheep are told to believe it all and they do.

What this displays is a complete lack of critical thinking among the followers. They are told to accept something whether they understand it or not; and they do. The Doctrine of the Trinity has turned the concept of Faith on its head. In the first century one had to believe that Christ was offering salvation. By the fourth century Christians had a whole series of other doctrines they had to believe. What is significant about this is that it did not pose a problem for Christian followers. They have displayed the true essence of being a sheep, obedience.

The implications of this have been monumental throughout history. Whenever there has been a leader in need of followers he has found them among the uncritically accepting Christian flock.

It is not by chance that the most Catholic of all continents, South America, has witnessed a pattern of strong-arm, quasi-fascist leaders in every country in the continent until recently when Catholicism has begun to wane in influence. Why has it been so easy for leadership to avoid revolution in the face of the most unevenly structured society on the planet?

While Joseph Stalin did not draw upon Christianity as a raison d'État (political reason) for his genocides, he certainly drew upon a populace conditioned by 500 years of compliance. Bolshevism merely replaced the Christian Czar with a secular Czar and this became revealing in itself. As soon as Orthodox Christianity was forcefully de-emphasized, the Bolsheviks had to deal with critics at a level unseen in Russian history. Soon the populace started to have opinions and this was a dangerous and intolerable situation for totalitarianism.

The French Revolution followed the exact same pattern. Critical thinking emerged from a secular movement in Paris. Had their not been non-Catholics questioning the concept of the divine right of kings, there never would have been a revolution. The point is not that revolutions turns out good or bad. It is that without critical thinking their is just order and passive acceptance. Order is always in the interest of the leadership.

130 years later it lead to the most bizarre war in the history of humankind. A continent full of Christians confronted each other and sacrificed themselves at the behest of their leaders. There were only two moments of humanity among four years of carnage. On Christmas day 1914 British and German soldiers made a statement by playing football together. Humanity trumped obedience, if only briefly. In 1917 this would play out once more among the French army. Known today as a mutiny, a contingent of the French Army set aside it's blind obedience, again, only for a short while.

The number of people Hitler killed himself is probably zero. It was the eight million obedient Lutherans and Catholics that just followed orders and did the dirty work. Where did the concept of uncritically following one's leaders get hammered into doctrine?

One of the first things Black slaves were taught when brought to the American South was Christian belief. Slaves revolted in Egypt. They revolted in Rome. They revolted against Sparta. They revolted in India and China. The number of black slave revolts in America can be counted on one hand, rarely numbering more than a few individuals understanding the inhumanity they were taught to endure.

While it is not a necessary requirement that leadership have a Christian flock to do their bidding (the Japanese atrocities in China during the 1930s attests to this), it has certainly been a sufficient condition. Where one finds a heavily Christian populace, one finds a compliant and uncritical base for leadership.

The ideology is, in fact, irrelevant. Christians have followed every "ism" ever developed. They are the foot soldiers for whatever leader is in front of them.

As the world gets a hold of the 21st Century's set of problems one is confronted by a glaring reality. The need to draw upon scientific advancement to address them seems obvious. At the same time, a reliance on science puts Christian faith in jeopardy. Fundamentalist Christian leadership has chosen to sacrifice accepting scientific methods in favor of theology. The world may not be able to rely upon scientific advancement if the Christian leadership has its way.

Fortunately for these evangelical leaders, they have an un-critical thinking army to draw upon for political support. This can be witnessed everyday as Christians accept the most contradictory and illogical concept ever devised by man without so much as a blink.