The Trinity (Theme 2)

Question 1

What is the need for the doctrine of the trinity?

Answer 1

Christianity is a monotheistic religon where the father, the son and the spirit are three distinct persons. Each person is fully God, coexistent, coeternal and coequal. There is only ONE God

Question 2

What are the three heresies of the doctrine of the trinity?

Answer 2

• Adoptionism
• Sabellianism
• Arianism

Question 3

How is adoptionism a heresy?

Answer 3

Jesus was an ordinary man who become the son of God only at Baptism

Question 4

How is Sabellianism a heresy?

Answer 4

The belief that Jesus was not human

Question 5

Arianism

Answer 5

The belief that Jesus was the highest of all created beings but not of the same substance as God

Question 6

What are the Biblical foundations of the doctrine of the trinity?

Answer 6

• Hebrew word for God, Elohim, is plural
• Jesus is referred to as God
• The Holy Spirit is referred to as God
• The Bible teaches that God is one
• No human words can express the reality of God
  _ God is a community, family of three in one

Question 8

What is the Filioque controversy?

Answer 8

The controversy of adding ‘and the son’

Question 9

What is the history of the Filioque controversy?

Answer 9

• The Council of Nicaea 325CE states that CHristians believe in the Holy Spirit
• The Council of Constantinople 381CE changed it to ‘we believe in the Holy spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds from the father’
• The Council of Toledo 589CE reads ‘‘we believe in the Holy spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, who proceeds from the father and the son”

Question 10

What was the results of the Filioque controversy?

Answer 10

In 1014 Pope Benedict agreed to use it in Mass. This led Rome accuseing the Eastern churches of heresy which caused The Great Schism of 1054 which is where the division of Eastern and Western churches originates from.

Question 12

Why is adding Filioque a controversy?

Answer 12

If the Holy Spirit did not proceed from both then there would not be the same bond of love of the Holy Spirit uniting humans with the father and son.

Question 13

The does the Eastern church believe about the trinity?

Answer 13

The Eastern Church accepts the structure of the Trinity of God as three equal persons, but does not accept the revelation of the Holy Spirit

Question 14

What are Karl Barths modern developments of the trinity?

Answer 14

-The doctrine of the trinity is that God has revealed himself to human beings. The son is an objective unveiling of what God is and the spirit is a subjective reception or imparting. There must be both the objective and subjective unveiling as they are unable to recognise the God in Jesus otherwise
- Endorses the use of Filioque.
- The Immanent trinity is reflected in the economic trinity
- Uses Seinweise to refer to God

Question 15

What are the problems with Karl Barths modern developments?

Answer 15

-The merging of the Immanent and Economic trinity as well as the acceptance of Filioque by the Eastern church is heresy
- The use of the term Seinweise to refer to the Godhead is the heresy of modalism
- It does not distinguish between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit
- Sees the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in eternal repetition

Question 16

What is Barths response to the problems raised?

Answer 16

• He claims that the Western church accepts Filioque
• Distinguishes between the Father from the son by the use of the term Logos Asarkos
• It is the Holy Spirit that bears witness to the work of the son