Development of the Trinity Doctrine
David Waltz comments below:
IMHO, even doctrines such as the Trinity “are dependant on other Catholic truths” and the “development of doctrine”. Though there is certainly more raw material (i.e. Scriptural passages) to work with, as Dr. Raymond Brown pointed out, this raw material could easily have taken a different “line of development”—note the following:
Then he quotes Raymond Brown:
Three different figures, Father, Son, and Spirit, are brought into conjunction in the NT. Some NT formulas join the three; other references unite the Father and the Son; and still other references relate the Spirit to the Father and/or Son. Nevertheless, in no NT passage, not even in Matt. 28:19, is there precision about three divine Persons, co-equal but distinct, and one divine Nature—the core of the dogma of the Trintiy. Greek philosophy, sharpened by continuing theological disputes in the church from the 2nd to the 5th centuries, contributed to the classical formulation of the dogma. On the one hand one may say, the, that the precise Trinitarian dogma is not detectable in the literal sense of the NT, i.e., was not observably understood by first-century authors and audiences. On the other hand, reflection on NT texts played a crucial role in leading the church to the dogma to the dogma of three divine Persons and one divine Nature, a dogma that employed new terminology and embodied new insights as a response to new questions. There is no need to posit new revelation to account for the truth ultimately phrased in the trinitarian dogma, since that truth was already revealed when God sent Jesus Christ and when the risen Christ communicated his Spirit. Yet the development was not simply a matter of logic. In faith, one can claim that the Spirit guided the church as it moved from the NT triadic passages to perceiving and proclaiming the trinitarian dogma. Christians should not be embarrassed to affirm that they depend upon the Spirit’s guidance in such an essential dogma., for that guidance is really an application of Christ’s promise to be with his community and to send the Paraclete to guide them along the way of all truth…If ‘tradition’ implies that first-century Christianity already understood three coequal but distinct divine Persons and one divine Nature but had not developed the precise terminology, I would dissent. Neither the terminology nor the basic ideas had reached clarity in the first century; problems and disputes were required before the clarity came…Precisely because the ‘trinitarian’ line of development was not the only line of thought detectable in the NT, one must posit the guidance of the Spirit and intuition of faith as the church came to its decision.
(Raymond E. Brown, Biblical Exegesis & Church Doctrine, 1985, pp. 31-33.)
I agree with all of this. It is clear enough to those who understand and accept development of doctrine. If you think the trinity is obvious in scripture then have a discussion with a Jehovah’s Witness or a Oneness Pentecostal. It was possible for Christians to go another direction. We know that it happened. But the church resolved it. They didn’t do it by telling everyone to read their bibles and notice how clearly biblical their position was. They did it by assembling the successors of the apostles and declaring what Christians were to believe on the matter. Like in Acts 15:28, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”, their words were deemed to reflect the understanding of the Holy Spirit.
Protestants seem to have a blind spot on development of doctrine. No doubt it is a willful blindness because understanding it means understanding why Sola Scriptura is unworkable. If they are able to ignore the massive empirical evidence of the many doctrines and denominations Sola Scriptura has produced then certainly it is not that hard to ignore an analysis of history that proves the same thing. The concepts are subtle enough to allow them to escape in a debate. I accept the trinity so what is your point? The point is that the process is the same one the church used to arrive at all the doctrines you don’t like. So you are being inconsistent.
The beautiful truth is that if you embrace development of doctrine you can be consistent. The process has never produced things that are irreconcilable. That is beyond amazing and can only be described as supernatural. Sure people who want to find contradictions will find them just like with scripture. But Sacred Scripture makes sense as a unified revelation of God and Sacred Tradition (including scripture) does as well. So we can embrace both faith and reason. Our faith does not force us to accept an irrational reading of history or make seemingly arbitrary choices about doctrines.
When properly understood the development of doctrine is very faith affirming. It puts Christianity to a stringent test. The good news is Catholic Christianity passes the test. The hard news, which also ends up being good news, is that protestant Christianity fails and deserves to be rejected.
Does this logically force people to become Catholic? Not really. The analysis is complex and there are many points of judgement that could be disputed. So becoming Catholic still requires faith. In fact, doing this historical analysis boggles the mind at how big a truth Christianity really is. So some might get a glimpse of the almighty and start running the other way. Logic can only carry is so far. Nobody can argue you into a heart of worship.
