Where Did the Trinity Come From?

Episode Outline:
0:00 What is the Trinity, really?
0:42 Bart and Megan on blog dinners, London, and teaching Sumerian
3:02 Why “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” is not yet the doctrine of the Trinity
5:15 Is the Trinity anywhere in the Bible?
7:32 How the doctrine grew out of biblical tensions
9:27 Early Christian alternatives to the Trinity
11:51 Modalism: one God in three modes
14:55 Why the Trinity is not simply polytheism
16:14 Tertullian and the first use of Trinitarian language
18:56 How the doctrine became orthodox teaching
19:35 Arius and the idea that Christ was a subordinate divine being
21:53 Alexander of Alexandria and the opposing view
23:34 The Council of Nicaea: what it actually decided
26:47 Why Nicaea did not end the debate
27:11 The Arian resurgence after Constantine
28:24 Final summary: how the Trinity became Christian orthodoxy
29:17 Weekly Update: New Insights in the New Testament conference
41:02 Listener Q&A: the Mass, Gospel communities, dinner guests, and manuscripts
49:12 Final recap: one God, three persons, and a doctrine beyond the New Testament

Episode Description
The idea of the Trinity - that God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit are different from each other and are all God, but there is only ONE God, is a central tenet of Christianity. But most Christians don't actually know what the doctrine really says, let alone where it came from (is it in the Bible?). In this episode we explain the factors that led to the formulation of the doctrine and see why it became so important to Christian thinking. But does it matter that the math doesn't work? (The three are one!) Or that it doesn't make logical sense?

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-What exactly is the doctrine of the trinity?

-Does the idea of the Trinity appear anywhere in the Bible?

-The idea of the Trinity came about as an answer to a theological question - namely, if God e-plicitly states that he is the only god, how do we reconcile that with Jesus’ divinity and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Is that a fair understanding, or does it need nuancing?

-The Trinity was just one answer to this particular question - how did non-orthodo- Christian groups deal with this problem? Did they all see it as a problem?

-Are there other solutions that answer this question?

-What makes the Trinity different from polytheism?

-Who can we credit with the idea of the Trinity?

-How was it received at the time?

-How did it come to be orthodo- teaching, and how does it go from there being this really popular idea to just being the Trinity?

-What role did the Council of Nicea play?