Chapter Two. The Emergence Of The Doctrine Of Immanent Trinity

Abstract

This chapter explores the reaction of the early church to the biblical testimony about God and the significance of that reaction to the Christian faith. It quotes St. Augustine (extensively) on what he understood as the position of the church fathers who preceded him on the doctrine of God. The formulation of the doctrine of God in Trinitarian terms serves in part as a statement of the identity of the Christian faith in the context of the triad. Based on the doctrine of the Trinity, mainstream Christian faith wished to make it clear to Judaism, to Judeo-Christianity, to Hellenism, and to the various forms of Greco-Roman Christianity that it was different, and that it wished to formulate the doctrine of God within the provisions of the Christian faith it had embraced. The key to reinterpreting the doctrine of the Trinity is a proper understanding of the development of that doctrine.Keywords: biblical testimony; Christian faith; early church; Greco-Roman Christianity; Hellenism; Judaism; Judeo-Christianity; St. Augustine; Trinity