part0029

It is now necessary for us to address Satan’s continued assault on the Word of God by way of Gnosticism and its evil stepchild, Neoplatonism. It is our opinion that the influence of these two philosophies greatly altered the course of Christian history and became the sandy foundation of what is now known as Christian “orthodoxy.”

Most Bible scholars agree that the Epistles of 1, 2 and 3 John were some of the last parts of Scripture written, late in the first century. A significant amount of the content of these Epistles was directed at combating the progenitors of the Gnostic heresy, which in its embryonic form had by that time infiltrated the Church to quite a degree.[1] When we refer to “Gnosticism” in this discussion, we are referring to the whole range of speculative and syncretistic (derived from many sources) philosophy that grew up about the same time the Christian Church was developing. There seems to be a growing scholarly consensus that what we call “Gnosticism” is more accurately understood as those systems of religious thought that made a distinction between a totally transcendent deity and the Creator of the world , the latter identified with the Creator God of the New Testament.[2] In most cases, this “creator” was understood to be a lesser deity, called a “demiurge,” who was considered evil. The diversity of these forms of incipient Gnosticism led one scholar to comment: “The plurality of definitions [of ‘Gnosticism’] and the inability of any single definition to win a clear consensus has been the problem.”[3]

It is noteworthy that the book of Jude was also written to encourage believers to “…contend earnestly for the faith…” (Jude 3 - NASB), which was being opposed by numerous false doctrines, chief among which was Gnosticism. Nowhere was this Gnostic influence more influential than in the area of the identity of Christ. Based upon the truth in 2 Corinthians 4:3 and 4, that the Devil’s primary goal is to blind men’s minds to the truth about Jesus Christ, it is predictable that this would have been one of the first areas of Satanic attack on the Church.

The discovery of the Nag Hammadi Coptic Library in Egypt in 1945–46 made possible much greater understanding of Gnostic religious thought, because for the first time scholars could study first-hand sources. Until then, the sum of what was known about Gnostic thought was through the filter of the early Church “Fathers,” notably the heresiologist Irenaeus.[4] This discovery complicated the prevailing view, derived from Irenaeus, that a pure and apostolic Christian faith was being attacked by a philosophical system that bore little similarity to orthodox Christianity and threatened to overcome it. For one thing, it was discovered that there were many variations of Gnosticism. This led modern scholars into many schools of thought on how they developed. Another fact revealed by modern research is that Gnostics and “orthodox” believers were more similar in their beliefs and practices than scholars thought. Though Gnostics were given to wild speculation, both they and the developing “orthodox” community shared common concerns. One of these was the elevation of “God” to a status previously unheard of—even beyond “being” itself. From this view, even calling Him the supreme being would limit him. Another shared concern was the triadic or Trinitarian nature of the “godhead, as Gnostic scholar Alastair Logan observes:

…a concern with the absolute transcendence of the supreme deity seems to have been characteristic of second-century philosophy and theology, pagan and Christian …The whole problem of how the diversity and plurality of the heavenly world, and hence of our visible world, arose from the perfect unity of the Monad [the Gnostic’s “supreme being”] is one which exercised the minds of the Gnostics as it did those of orthodox Christians and pagan philosophers. But over against the tendency of the latter two to develop a single answer, the Gnostics characteristically present a variety of views reflecting various kinds of imagery.[5]

This concept of “absolute transcendence” is very important to note, for it explains later theological developments in the formulation of Christian doctrine. John Dart quotes Kurt Rudolph citing Job 28 and Proverbs 30:1–4:

It is also clear from the Nag Hammadi sources that the Gnostics considered themselves “Christians.” They used Christian themes and symbols, but because they were syncretistic (adding unbiblical concepts into their religious “stew”), they were the first to borrow heavily from the Greek philosopher Plato. They apparently provided the philosophical framework for Neoplatonic thought that arose later.[7] Most significantly, the Gnostics were the first to articulate a multi-personal “Godhead,” developing a Trinity of Father, Mother and Son. Logan supplies us with critical insight concerning the relationship between second-century “Christian” speculation and Gnostic beliefs, particularly in reference to the origin of the Trinitarian idea:

One significant task of second-century Christian theology could be said to be to determine the role and identity of Sophia, Wisdom, in relation to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit…Furthermore, these Gnostics…may with justice be seen as the pioneers in developing an understanding of God as “triadic” or “Trinitarian,” perhaps even in immanent as well as economic terms. What unites the two [competing] systems of [Gnostic thought], beside the light theme and the Sophia myth, is that both develop alternative Trinitarian schemes . Thus, the [one] system, probably mainly under the influence of the female figures of Holy Spirit and Wisdom of Jewish Christianity, but also aware of the speculations of contemporary Middle Platonists and Neopythagoreans on the divine hierarchy, develops a triad of Father, Mother and Son, splitting the Mother into a higher and lower Sophia, the latter of whom it identifies with the Holy Spirit.[8]

The research now shows that the Gnostics derived much of the basis of their philosophy from Jewish and Christian sources, and a variety of respected scholars think that by the time of Irenaeus (180 A.D. ) they were as influenced by incipient Trinitarian speculations about the Godhead (Christ being a pre-existent divine being, etc.), as they were a heretical influence.[9] This lends credence to the point that we expanded upon in Chapter 15 when we investigated the expansion of piety—that many errors in both the text and doctrine were the result, not of outside heretical influence, but of sincere theological speculation and religious devotion on the part of the textual custodians of that era who were under the influence of unbiblical philosophical systems. Hawkin cites Bauer, who demonstrated the relativism of the terms “orthodox” and “heretical” in the early Church:

[Bauer] has given renewed impetus to viewing Christian origins from the standpoint of diversity…Early Christianity [showed] considerable confusion and fluidity…Groups later labeled “heretical” were in fact the earliest representatives of Christianity in many areas (like the Arians, Ebionites, etc.)…The victory of what is now labeled “orthodox” was due almost entirely to the Roman Church.[10]

Although there were many errors taught by later Christians under the direct influence of Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, it is certain from the biblical evidence that there were various forms of incipient Gnosticism thriving in the first century that twisted the Christian message and led believers astray. Alan Richardson calls this phenomenon “the melancholy transformation of the original apostolic kerygma [i.e., the Apostles’ Doctrine] into the developed Gnostic Catholicism of the second century.”[11] A few of the early Church fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, among them Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus and Epiphanius, were scathing in their remarks about Gnostics, even while they were guilty of many of the same philosophical excesses. As we have discussed, there were many variations of Gnostic thought, some more dangerous than others by virtue of their counterfeit appeal. The attack on Christianity was real, and was addressed by the apostolic Church.

These last two points are very significant, in that those errors most profoundly influenced Christian thought. Although most people today do not view Jesus as only a spirit being, many think of him as a God-man, with the “God” part more important, or at least more relevant, than the “man” part. This fact is reflected in the common belief among Christians that Jesus could not have sinned or failed in his mission.

Another point to note is that Gnostics saw the universe populated by groupings of divine beings that came from the supreme being, or “Monad” (the One). These included dyads, triads, tetrads, ogdoads, etc. The impact of these groupings cannot be overestimated. It was very easy for someone indoctrinated by this belief system to see God as a “Godhead” composed of more than one being. In fact, he who was known as “The Valentinian Gnostic” had been, accordingly, so far as the existing sources permit us to know, the first “Christian” theologian to designate the Father, Son and Spirit specifically as a triad.[12] Logan verifies this point and adds some further insight into the way the Gnostics viewed “the God of the Old Testament” as a lesser God. We can also see their idea of a transcendent God beyond that lesser “God.”

The world-view of these Gnostics, as with Saturninus, Basilides and Valentinus, was undoubtedly Platonic. It reflected the attempt to derive the Many from the One, and to explain the visible universe as the work of a lower god, the Demiurge, who emanated from the transcendent One beyond being, in terms of the inexplicable self-revelation and unfolding of the supreme God as Father, Mother and Son….As the fundamental concept of the self-revelation of the divine triad suggests, it is essentially a Christian scheme. It…see[s] the God of the Old Testament as a blind, ignorant and arrogant Demiurge, and thus seek[s] to discover the hitherto unknown God beyond God , first revealed by Christ and his proclamation. And it builds its theogony not on the basis of Genesis and the prophets, reflecting the work of and inspired by that Demiurge, but on the basis of [second-century] Christian speculation on Christ and Wisdom such as is found in Hebrews, derived from the Psalms and Wisdom books but interpreted in the light of contemporary Platonic ideas. Above all, it reflects the experience of salvation through a Christian Gnostic initiation ritual based on baptism in the name of the Gnostic triad …” [i.e., Father, Mother, Son].”[13]

Another aspect of Gnostic thought was the concept of the “Fullness” (Gr. Pleroma ), which was speculated to be an intermediate realm populated by various incorporeal spirit entities (i.e., they did not have bodies, which were made of lower stuff—flesh). This provides a strong indication why both John (John 1:16) and Paul (Eph. 1:23 and Col. 2:9) would employ the word “fullness” in connection with Christ. In John, we have received of his fullness; in Ephesians, the Church is his fullness; and in Colossians, he is all the fullness of God in bodily form . Perhaps the reason why the only occurrence of the word “Godhead” is in Colossians 2:9 (KJV) is that Colosse was one of the locations in the first century where incipient Gnosticism was particularly influential. What the term “Godhead” meant to the proto-Gnostics is unclear, but biblically it refers to God’s power, signifying that Christ sits at His right hand fully endowed with authority and majesty to rule and reign with God.[14] There is no indication that the term implies a substance or state of being in which there can be more than one person. Colossians 2:9 contradicts the Gnostic assertion that there were all manner of beings populating “the Fullness,” and asserts that Christ alone is the “fullness” of God in bodily form. The term “bodily form” is significant because the exalted spirit beings of Gnostic thought had no need for bodies. But Jesus, even now in his exalted state as the Lord, Vice-Regent of the universe, has a body.

Paul’s (and John’s) writings contain statements that can be best understood in the context of the belief systems influencing the people to whom they wrote. In 1 Timothy 1:4, Paul exhorts his young protegé to command certain men not to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Scholars now recognize the Gnostic influence in these, since the Gnostics had many genealogies in the development of their hierarchy of gods. Later in 1 Timothy, Paul wrote, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). One can hardly imagine Paul needing to write to Timothy about “one God” if Timothy were dialoguing only with monotheistic Jews. The Gnostics, however, had many gods, and to them Jesus was not “the man Christ Jesus,” but rather an emanation of the Father—a god, a god-man or a spirit being of some sort. Paul wrote by revelation to support the clear and simple teaching of all Scripture, but it should be obvious that the Gnostic tendencies won out, and the “doctrine of the God-man” Jesus became the standard teaching in Christendom thereafter.

Most scholars believe that Paul’s Epistles to Timothy were written approximately twenty years before John’s Epistles. There are numerous references throughout Paul’s Epistles to Timothy that refute Gnostic doctrine, but many of these are not relevant to this book. Suffice it to say that from the beginning of 1 Timothy to the end of 2 Timothy, Paul is almost pleading with his young friend to uphold the standard of the written Word of God in the face of heresy, notably Gnosticism. The following two sections make this plain:

It is obvious that Paul was very concerned that Timothy uphold the truth, because as he wrote in 1 Timothy 2:4, God wants “…all men be to saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” The next verse sets forth the focal point of the truth as far as God’s Word is concerned:

This succinct statement highlights the primary truth of God’s Word from Genesis 3:15 forward. Only a man could redeem mankind.[15] Only a man, by living a sinless life and dying on the Cross, could be the bridge between a holy God and sinful mankind. But, as we have seen, this man could not be just any man. As a matter of fact, only one man ever born could fit the bill—T HE M AN , Jesus Christ. A clear statement like this should go a long way to disprove the Gnostic or Trinitarian belief that Christ is a God-man and not a man.

As we saw in Chapter 6, Matthew’s gospel emphasizes Jesus as the King to Israel, Mark’s gospel emphasizes Jesus as a servant, Luke’s gospel emphasizes him as a man among men, and John’s specifically emphasizes Jesus as the Son of God. John’s three epistles continue the theme of his gospel, and include a number of truths that specifically combat Gnostic heresy. John’s gospel and his three epistles can only be properly understood and appreciated against the backdrop of Gnosticism, which was competing for the minds and hearts of his readers.

In verse 1, John writes with the same understanding as he did in the first verse of his gospel. Jesus was the embodiment of the logos , the purpose and plan in God’s mind, “from the beginning.” Verse 3 makes clear that one of John’s intentions in writing was that those who read this epistle will “…fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Once again we see the “Dynamic Duo,” not the “Triune Trio.”

In the ensuing verses concluding Chapter 1 and beginning Chapter 2, John goes on to say that through Jesus Christ, Christians can, despite their sin nature, be perfected and walk in the light as he is the light. John then addresses the subject of the spirit of antichrist that was causing some people to lie about Jesus Christ.

It is interesting that verse 22 says that whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah (that is, the promised seed of Genesis 3:15, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, a man anointed with holy spirit —Acts 10:38) is a liar.[17] The verse goes on to say that the antichrist spirit denies the proper relationship between the Father and the Son. Verse 23 states that whoever denies the Son has not the Father. Nowhere in the above verses is a “third person of the Trinity” mentioned. Trinitarians often quote this section of Scripture to admonish those who deny their doctrine, but it seems to us that Trinitarian doctrine undermines the proper relationship between the Father and the Son and is therefore a prime candidate for the false doctrine that entered the Church under the influence of a “spirit of anti-Christ.” In light of all the various aspects of error that this doctrine has introduced, we think it is quite plain that the Church was not under the influence of the true spirit of God when developing its Christological doctrine. John warned the early Church to be alert for the influence of this spirit, but, sadly, it was not alert enough.

The influence of idolatry, deception and temptation is often extremely subtle, and God’s people have to some degree succumbed to it in nearly every age and period of their history. It is certainly not a disgrace that, under the difficult times of persecution and deprivation faced by the early Church, they might have embraced some pagan ideas in order to make the Christian message more palatable to a pagan audience. In the light of available historical research, it should be possible for Christian teachers and leaders to recognize the mistake and correct it.

If you are on a long journey and you take a wrong turn, it is wisest and most practical to quickly admit it and get back on the right road. Or, if you realized that your suitcases blew off the roof of your car on the first day of driving, you would stop and go back for them. You wouldn’t spend endless amounts of mental energy rationalizing that the loss was a good thing (“We’re getting better gas mileage,” “The car handles better,” etc.). Unfortunately, the longer a situation goes uncorrected and the present condition defended and rationalized, the harder it is to admit that a wrong turn was even made or that something was really lost. Indeed, you may very well become angry at those who suggest that it doesn’t make sense to drive around lost or without any luggage. Admittedly this is a metaphor that doesn’t exactly fit the situation, but it does invite consideration of some important parallels.

Remember that the Gnostics believed that all matter is evil, and therefore they taught that Jesus Christ was not actually a man of flesh and blood, but rather some kind of phantom or spirit being. In verses 2 and 3, John makes it very plain that anyone who teaches that Jesus Christ was anything other than a 100 percent, red-blooded human being is teaching false doctrine.

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Verse 15 agrees with Romans 10:9: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him. Chapter 5 begins by affirming this same truth:

Let us read carefully as we closely examine the following verses:

Verse 5 says that Jesus is the Son of God. Verse 6 says that he was born of a woman like every other human being since Adam and Eve (“by water and blood”). Then he received the spirit of God upon him. If you are familiar with the KJV, you know that there is a tremendous discrepancy between it and the NIV in verses 7 and 8.

Some time after the fifteenth century, a misguided scribe added to the Greek text of verses 7 and 8 the spurious words (in bold type ) that you can see are not found in the NIV. These added words are found in no Greek text prior to the sixteenth century. The NIV translators, despite the fact that they were Trinitarians, recognized this and deleted these words. Rather than an “honest mistake,” this insertion is very likely a textual forgery, and appears to have stemmed from a Trinitarian’s desire to insert in Scripture a doctrine that is simply not there.[18]

Notice that the word “truth ” appears five times in those first four verses. What do you think is the primary truth being referred to? The answer is found in verse 3 where the phrase, “the Father’s Son” (KJV: “the Son of the Father”) appears for the only time in the Bible. John here reiterates the same truth contained in 1 Corinthians 8:6 that there is one God, the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ, His Son .

Here we see that John repeats what he wrote in the first epistle about Jesus Christ being a flesh-and-blood human being. In verse 9, he twice refers to this truth as the doctrine “of [about] Christ.” In verse 9, we also once again see both the Father and the Son. It is noteworthy that the word “both” precedes the phrase, “the Father and the Son,” because “both” indicates two separate and individual beings. There is no mention here of any Holy Spirit or a “third” person.

In verse 9, notice the words, “Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ….” Instead of “runs ahead,” the NASB reads, “goes too far.” We agree with E. W. Bullinger’s marginal note that this verse “refers to false teachers who claimed to bring some higher teaching beyond the Apostles’ Doctrine.” This is in contrast to exhortations like Paul’s, for example:

Is it not “conceited” and “running ahead” and “going too far” to assert what Scripture does not—in this case, that Jesus is a “God-man”?

The remains of Gnostic heresy are still found today in the doctrine of the Trinity, which, despite its claims to the contrary, states that Jesus was not really a flesh-and-blood human being like the First Adam was. Rather, he was a “God-man,” having both a divine nature and a human nature. He was “100 percent God and 100 percent man.”[19] The doctrine also teaches that Jesus had always lived in heaven with God and the Holy Spirit before he was born in the manger. Could such a “pre-existent Jesus” really be the flesh-and-blood Jesus of Scripture? To us, such a Jesus is “another Jesus,” according to Scripture:

Keep in mind that one of the great goals of Scripture is to motivate us to make every effort to be like Christ. The more we can identify with him, the easier this will be. It is an unfortunate result of much Christian teaching and worship that Jesus is elevated to such an extent that if someone says, “I am going to think and act like Jesus,” he or she is often thought of as being irreverent and ungodly. Although it is true that none of us will attain his state of perfection, it is a goal each of us should have, and a goal toward which we are commanded to strive.

An ancient mystical philosophy based on the later doctrines of Plato, especially those in the Timaeus . Considered the last of the great pagan philosophies, it was developed in the third century A.D. by Plotinus. Despite his mysticism, Plotinus’ method was thoroughly rational, based on the logical traditions of the Greeks. Later Neoplatonists grafted onto its body such disparate elements as Eastern mysticism, divination, demonology, and astrology. Neoplatonism, widespread until the 7th century, was an influence on early Christian thinkers (e.g., Origen) and medieval Jewish and Arab philosophers. It was firmly joined with Christianity by St. Augustine, who was a Neoplatonist before his conversion. Neoplatonism has had a lasting influence on Western metaphysics and mysticism. Philosophers whose works contain elements of Neoplatonism include St. Thomas Aquinas, Boethius and Hegel.[20]

Plotinus and Proclus, who wrote in the third century, were the chief proponents of Neoplatonism. This philosophy was developed from Plato’s theories of “Forms,” which he believed were the only things that were “real.”[21] These “Forms” exist in a divine mind beyond the heavens. Rejecting Gnostic dualism, the metaphysical doctrine that only two substances exist, mind and matter (soul and body, etc.), Plotinus saw reality as one vast hierarchical order containing all the various levels and kinds of existence. In his view, the highest “Form” was “The One,” or Monad, beyond being. The lowest level of “Form” was the realm of matter and physical bodies. The One emanated its own essence, like light shines through darkness. This emanation created the Divine Mind, or Logos . The Logos , or divine reason, was the highest form in which forms exist as ideas, and it contains all intelligent forms of all individuals. This in turn generates the World Soul, which links the intellectual and material worlds [don’t worry, this makes no sense to us either]. Souls were believed to travel when they leave the body.

As the Columbia Encyclopedia pointed out, Neoplatonism profoundly influenced St. Augustine’s theology, although he repudiated much of what he had formerly believed and taught when he converted from Neoplatonism. However, his theories about the transcendence of God, the role of faith and the soul’s survival after death were particular areas in which he was influenced by his former beliefs. Augustine, in turn, was a major influence in the development of Christian theology in general, and is considered by many to be the greatest theologian of the first millennium of Christian history.

Proclus’ views helped shape Christian negative theology , which emphasizes the limits of man’s ability to comprehend a Supreme Being. He taught that one could not say who or what God was, only what He was not . He taught that reality existed in a solitary perfect being, The One , who was the source of all truth, goodness and beauty. He contributed to the notion that God was essentially a mathematical abstraction. The triune “God” of traditional Christianity is the result of such reasoning, for “God” is not a unique person but a unique “substance” or “essence,” which coexists in the form of three “co-eternal persons.” In our view, this reduces the concept of “God” to an incomprehensible and unbiblical abstraction. A good example of such reasoning is the following assertion by two modern Trinitarians:

To illustrate the reasoning, consider one of the common analogies often proposed to argue for the Trinity: there are three generations of “Smiths”—Tom, George and Bruce. They are three separate persons, but of one “essence,” which could be called “Smithness.” Thus, Tom, George and Bruce are three persons but one essence. The problem with this “logic” is that “Smithness” does not exist as a person, only as an abstraction. God, however, is clearly represented as a person, a personal being who can be called upon for aid. One cannot call upon “Smithness” to help in a crisis.[23]

The living God is not an abstraction, but is a real being with personality, will and desire. And Jesus Christ is the unique Son of this living God, who is also identified as the Father of Jesus Christ . The Trinitarian “God” is not the personal “God” who is one person, but some kind of “Entity” who is manifested as three separate persons. Such a vague and mystical theological construct does not seem possible without the aid of Neoplatonic emphasis on mathematical forms or ideals that have no personal relationships with seekers, nor are they capable of giving revelation or guidance to those who look to them. Thus, the Christian Church by the end of the fourth century had completely redefined who God is.

The principal agents of this transformation were three theologians from Cappadocia. Richard Rubenstein’s “When Jesus Became God ” includes an insightful discussion about the role of the Cappadocians—Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa, Basil’s younger brother—on the development of Christian doctrine in the fourth century. These Cappadocians were the main ones to use “creative thinking” (i.e., “Neoplatonically influenced”) to arrive at a solution to the problem of the personality of the Holy Spirit, and in the process developed a completely new understanding of the nature of God. Rubenstein explains:

What was needed to clear up this confusion [about the identity of the Holy Spirit] was something that the Nicene Creed alone could not supply: a doctrine explaining how God could be One and yet consist of two to three separate entities. And the development of this doctrine, Basil recognized, could not take place without new language. It was necessary to create a new theological vocabulary capable of going beyond the bare statement that the Father and Son were of the same essence (homousios ). That term expressed the Oneness of God, but how to express His multiplicity as well?

The answer was to clarify or redefine key words…The corrective was to distinguish clearly between ousia and hypostasis , “essence” and “being.” The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three separate beings, each with his own individual characteristics—they are three hypostases . But they are one and the same in essence—they are homoousios …

The difference of the hypostases does not dissolve the continuity of their nature nor does the community of their nature dissipate the particularity of their characteristics. Do not be amazed if we declare that the same thing is united and distinct, and conceive, as in a riddle, of a new and paradoxical unity in distinction and distinction in unity.[25]

Rubenstein recognizes that the Cappadocian solution “altered the Christian understanding of God”:

What the Cappaccocian theology did was to make it clear that if Christ was fully divine, God could not be primarily a Father, but must equally be a Son and a Spirit. As Gregory of Nyssa put it, “God is not God because he is Father, nor the Son because he is the Son, but because both possess the ousia of Godhead.

Thus, the most basic New Testament understanding of “…God [as] the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…” was transformed into an incomprehensible “God” of three equal Persons, none greater or lesser, earlier or later. Trinitarians want to convince us that the Trinity was a doctrine taught by the Apostles, but as we are seeing, history clearly shows that this is not the case. The doctrine of the Trinity as it is now taught by orthodox Christianity was not “the Apostle’s Doctrine” but a theological construct. With the advent of this new doctrine, even prayer became challenging to understand. Who was Jesus praying to in the garden of Gethsemane? Why would he need to pray to the Father if as the Son he was a co-equal part of the Godhead? Even the Lord’s prayer became problematic, as the following commentator observes:

Was the Lord’s prayer addressed only to the hypostasis of the Father as “our Father” and the Father of the Son, or to the entire ousia of the Godhead? Basil’s answer…was to declare that what was common to the Three and what was distinctive among them lay beyond speech and comprehension and therefore beyond either analysis or conceptualization.[27]

Basil’s response set the pattern for Cappadocian Trinitarianism, which has now become “orthodoxy.” Such rhetoric, typical among those who still echo it, “transports us to realms where words, shorn at last of their semantic burdens, pirouette and regroup into combinations hitherto undreamed of.”[28] It seems to us that this vague and mystical theological construction was made possible by the influence of Neoplatonic thought, with its emphasis on abstract and mathematical “Forms.” The biblical view of a personal relationship with a reasonable God who reveals Himself and His nature to mankind was severely compromised in the process.

Historians are very aware of the direct link between Neoplatonism and the development of Christian doctrine in the second through fifth centuries, culminating in the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in which Trinitarian orthodoxy was formulated.[29] In its article on “Christianity,” the Encyclopaedia Brittannica considers the following information vital to understanding the history of the Christian faith. Keep in mind that what is important is not that we understand the teachings of Neoplatonism (Thank God!), for they are extremely speculative and virtually incomprehensible. What is important is to recognize that they had a profound influence upon the intellectual and ecclesiastical leaders of their day. We have taken the liberty of emphasizing key portions of the article (and adding a few comments):

Christ as the Logos , under the influence of Neoplatonic Logos philosophy, became the subject of a speculative theology; there thus developed “a speculative interest in the relationship of the oneness of God to the triplicity of his manifestations.” This question was answered through the Neoplatonic metaphysics of being. The transcendent God, who is beyond all being , all rationality and all conceptuality, divests himself of his divine transcendence ; in a first act of becoming self-conscious he recognizes himself [“Hey! I’m me!”] as the divine nous (mind), or divine world reason, which was characterized by the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus as the “Son” who goes forth from the Father.

The next step by which the transcendent God becomes self-conscious consists in the appearance in the divine nous of the divine world, the idea of the world in its individual forms as the content of the divine consciousness [“Are we having fun yet?”]. In Neoplatonic philosophy both the nous and the idea of the world are designated the hypostases [personalities] of the transcendent God. Christian theology took the Neoplatonic metaphysics of substance as well as its doctrine of hypostases as the departure point for interpreting the relationship of the “Father” to the “Son” in terms of the Neoplatonic hypostases doctrine. This process stands in direct relationship with a speculative interpretation of Christology in connection with Neoplatonic Logos speculation.

The assumption of the Neoplatonic hypostases doctrine meant from the beginning a certain evaluation of the relationships of the three divine figures to one another , because for Neoplatonism the process of hypostatization is at the same time a process of diminution of being. In flowing forth from his transcendent source, the divine being is weakened with the distance from his transcendent origin. Diminution of being is brought about through approach to matter, which for its part is understood in Neoplatonism as non-being. In transferring the Neoplatonic hypostases doctrine to the Christian interpretation of the Trinity , there existed the danger that the different manifestations of God—as known by the Christian experience of faith: Father, Son, Holy Spirit—would be transformed into a hierarchy of gods graduated among themselves and thus into a polytheism. Though this danger was consciously avoided, and, proceeding from a Logos Christology, the complete sameness of essence of the three manifestations of God was emphasized, there arose the danger of a relapse into a triplicity of equally ranked gods, which would displace the idea of the oneness of God.

By the third century it was already apparent that all attempts to systematize the mystery of the divine Trinity with the theories of Neoplatonic hypostases metaphysics led to ever new conflicts. The high point, upon which the basic difficulties underwent their most forceful theological and ecclesiastically political actualization, was the so-called Arian controversy…In his theological interpretation of the idea of God, Arius was interested in maintaining a formal understanding of the oneness of God. In defense of the oneness of God, he was obliged to dispute the sameness of essence of the Son and the Holy Spirit with God the Father, as stressed by the theologians of the Neoplatonically-influenced Alexandrian school. From the outset, the controversy between both parties took place upon the common basis of the Neoplatonic concept of substance, which was foreign to the New Testament itself. It is no wonder that the continuation of the dispute on the basis of the metaphysics of substance likewise led to concepts that have no foundation in the New Testament , such as the question of the sameness of essence (homoousia ) or similarity of essence (homoiousia ) of the divine persons.[30]

It is interesting to note that the debate over the single “i” difference between these two words (homoousia and homoiousia ) was the origin of the aphorism: “It doesn’t make one iota of a difference.” Logically, however, there is a very great difference between things that are identical and things that are similar. Failing to distinguish the difference has led to a host of other errors in biblical interpretation, most particularly in discerning the difference between literal statements and figures of speech.

From the historical development of the doctrine of the Trinity, we can see that Paul’s warning to the church at Colosse to avoid “deceptive philosophy” went unheeded. In fact, after his death, the Church strayed from his teaching and veered toward the deceptive teaching that he warned about His words continue to resonate powerfully through the centuries, still seeking ears that will hear, and still full of latent power to free those who are captivated by unbiblical ideas:

Not only did Paul warn those who came after him to avoid speculative philosophies like Gnosticism, he also warned them that if they did not, the truth would be exchanged for a myth. We must now explore how the deadly combination of piety within and heresy without shook the foundations of the faith and eventually led to the Church’s embracing the myth that the transcendent and mysterious God had actually become a human being and lived among us.

[1 ]. Although the true aim of the Epistles of John is to edify believers and deepen their fellowship with the Lord, this can only occur if believers are really standing in the truth and not turned from it by false ideas. A pervasive error entering the Church and turning believers from the faith was Gnosticism. A. E. Brooke, Dean of King’s College in Cambridge, writes:

Nine times at least the writer offers his readers tests by which they may assure themselves about the truth of their Christian position. The writer’s aim in this ninefold “hereby we know” cannot be only to set forth the true knowledge in opposition to the false “Gnosis ” of his Gnostic opponents. Clearly his readers had felt the doubts which had grown in force.

The International Critical Commentary, The Johannine Epistles (T&T Clark Ltd., Edinburgh, 1994), pp. xviii–xx.

[ 7 ] . Logan, op. cit., Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy, p. 22. He writes:

The world-view of these Gnostics, as with Saturninus, Basilides and Valentinus, is undoubtedly Platonic. It reflects the attempt to derive the Many from the One, and to explain the visible universe as the work of a lower god, the Demiurge, emanated from the transcendent One beyond being, in terms of the inexplicable self-revelation and unfolding of the supreme God as Father, Mother and Son…As the fundamental concept of the self-revelation of the divine triad suggests, it is essentially a Christian scheme.

Because of his theological training, Logan considers the Father, Mother, Son imagery to be a “Christian” scheme. We assert that the evidence is clear that the triadic formula originated with the Gnostics and, through their influence and the later influence of Neoplatonism, profoundly affected the development of “Christian” doctrine.

[14 ]. Gerhard Kittel, ed., on theotes , which occurs only once in the New Testament (Col. 2:9): “The [God] of the Old Testament has attracted to Himself all divine power in the cosmos, and on the early Christian view He has given this fullness of power to Christ as the Bearer of the divine office.” Kittel, op. cit., Theological Dictionary , Vol. III, p. 119. See Appendix A (Col. 2:9).

[16 ]. Logan identifies various Gnostic rituals that involved chrisms (chrismation), or “anointings” for the elect. Interestingly, John identifies this “anointing” as something that the believers have already received. We already have an “anointing”, thus interrupting the Gnostic elitism of the gnostikoi (the enlightened or anointed ones). Logan, op. cit., Gnostic Truth and Christian Heresy, p. 34.

[21 ]. Plato taught that there were invisible and ideal “forms,” like truth, beauty, love, etc., that lie behind the visible things of this earthly existence. Thus, we recognize a particular “chair” because there is the ideal form of “Chair,” which we know intuitively and can therefore recognize particular chairs.

[23 ]. This thinking of “God” as an “essence” or “substance” has led many Trinitarians to liken the Godhead to H20, and the persons of the Godhead as ice, water and steam. But water can be in only one of these forms under the same conditions at the same time (ice below freezing, steam above 212° F [100° C], etc.). Therefore by employing this reasoning they have unwittingly fallen into the historical “heresy” of Sabellianism or Modalism, in which it is asserted that God only manifests Himself as one of the divine persons at a time, and does not coexist as three persons simultaneously.

[ 29 ] . The New Catholic Encyclopedia , in its article on the “Holy Trinity,” says the following:

There is the recognition on the part of exegetes and Biblical theologians, including a constantly growing number of Roman Catholics, that one should not speak of Trinitarianism in the New Testament without serious qualification. There is also the closely parallel recognition on the part of historians of dogma and systematic theologians that when one does speak of an unqualified Trinitarianism, one has moved from the period of Christian origins to, say, the last quadrant of the 4th Century. It was only then that what might be called the definitive Trinitarian dogma “one God in three Persons” became thoroughly assimilated into Christian life and thought (McGraw Hill, N.Y., 1967), Vol. 14, p. 295.