Tertullian [FONT="]Carthage (c. A.D. 213) is cited next as saying, "there was a time that the Son was not" ( 7). However, what Tertullian meant (in his argument against the Modalism of Praxeas) was that he believed the Word was the Eternal God but yet distinct in His Person from God the Father, and that the Word took on the title "Son" which was a common belief among many church Fathers (esp. the apologists).[/FONT]
That Tertullian said that Jesus was created or came to be (in terms of His existence as a Person) is completely and diabolically distorting what Tertullian meant. In fact, it was Tertullian that first coined the word "Trinity" [FONT="](Lat. trinitas, the cognate of Gk. triados) in the West. Odd that the SYBT booklet would even cite this church Father. Tertullian taught:[/FONT]
For the very church itself--properly and principally--the Spirit Himself, in whom is the Trinity [[FONT="]trinitas], of the One Divinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (4:99; emphasis added; cf. Against Praxeas).[/FONT]
This opens the ears of Christ our God (3:715; cf. ibid.).
Surely I might venture to claim the very Word also as being of the Creator's [Father] substance (3:356; cf. ibid.).
Now, if He too is God, for according to John, 'The Word was God,' then you have two Beings-- One who commands that the thing to be made, and the other who creates. In what sense, however, you ought to understand Him to be another. I have already explained: on the ground of personality, not of substance. And in the way of distinction, not of division. I must everywhere hold only one substance, in three coherent and inseparable [persons] (3. 607; cf. ibid.).
It should be noted as well that in the East, as early as A.D. 180, church apologist Theophilus bishop of Antioch first uses the term “Trinity†to describe God:
In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity [triados] of God, and His Word, and His wisdom ([FONT="]Theophilus To Autolycus 2.15, in ANF, vol. 3).[/FONT]
Origen (c. A.D. 228) was also cited by SYBT as denying that Jesus was God. However, Origen contradicts these Watchtower assertions:
The Word that was in the beginning with God (who is also very God) may come to us (4:449).
The Son is not different from the Father in substance (9:336).
Saving baptism was not complete except by the authority of the most excellent Trinity of them all. That is, it is made complete by naming the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In this, we join the name of the Holy Spirit to the Unbegotten God (the Father) and to His Only-Begotten Son (4:252).
[SIZE=-1]
[/SIZE] [SIZE=-1] [/SIZE]My web space could never hold the libraries of quotations and apologetic works of church Fathers teaching and defending the Deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity. To the church Fathers, teaching, and defending the Deity of Christ and the Trinity was extremely important to them. Many of them spilled their own blood defending these doctrines. Why? Because in Trinity is how God revealed Himself to man: FATHER, SON, and HOLY SPIRIT.
The SYBT ends this page entitled: "What the Ante-Nicene Fathers Taught" by this:
"Thus, the testimony of the Bible and of history makes clear that the Trinity was unknown throughout Biblical times and for several centuries thereafter" (p. 7).
Unknown?
OBJECTION #4: The Trinity doctrine did not emerge
until fourth century:
RESPONSE: To be sure, this is an
argument from ignorance. First of all, it is completely misleading to say that the doctrine of the Trinity did not emerge until the fourth century. As seen above, in the East, as early as A.D. 180, church apologist Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, first uses the term “Trinity†to describe God:
In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the
Trinity [
triados] of God, and His Word, and His wisdom (Theophilus,
To Autolycus, 2.15).
And, noted above, in the West, around A.D. 213, the brilliant church theologian and polemicist, Tertullian of Carthage, uses the term “Trinityâ€:
As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity [
[FONT="]trinitas][/FONT] placing in their order the three Persons. . . . (Tertullian,
Against Praxeas, 2, in
ANF, vol. 3).
Again, it is true the exact English word “Trinity†is not in the Bible. But, as we have seen, this is a meaningless objection since there are many words that are justifiably used to communicate the truth of God, not specifically utilized in the Hebrew or Greek text (e.g., “incarnation,†“self-existent,†“omnipresenceâ€; etc.). The point being that the Christian church has used many extra-biblical terminology words to convey divine revelation. Sola Scriptura is not simply adhering to the
words of Scripture, but it is also being faithful to the
teaching of Scripture. Regrettably, far too many people are deceived into thinking that the latter must be rejected if it does not incorporate
verbatim the language of the former.
Descriptive theological words do not necessarily have to be the
exact words form the original languages to communicate a biblical truth. The reason that the Protestant church rejected (and rejects) the dogmas of Roman Catholicism is that Rome holds to the position that the Word of God is contained in both “tradition and Scripture.†Hence, Catholic doctrines like
Purgatory, praying for the dead, the
Immaculate Conception of Mary,
ex cathedra, (i.e., the infallibility of the Pope), etc., are not doctrines derived from Scripture (the written Word), but rather church tradition.
10 For these teachings are foreign to Scripture. Thus, the Protestant church repudiates that claim whereby holding to Scripture alone
11 as the sole infallible rule of faith for the church—Scripture is sufficient. “Do not,†Paul says, “go beyond what is written†(1 Cor. 4:6 NIV).
We are dealing, therefore, with the biblical
data for the Trinity. Again, the precise terms to which define the data (viz. formularized doctrine) came later. So the assertion that the Trinity did not emerge until the fourth century confuses the doctrinal word “Trinity†with the biblical data of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which, as we will enjoy shortly, the early church envisaged. They did not see God as a single undifferentiated Being, but the God who revealed Himself as tri-personal.
