© 2006 Jean Royer
© 2006 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
The early Christians made little attempt to elucidate the relationships of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Tertullian (150-225) was perhaps the first to use the term Trinity. “God is one substance in three coherent and inseparable persons.”
The formula used by Jesus and found in the Gospel of John: “I and the Father are one.” (John 10.30) will even lead us to believe that there is identity between the Father and Christ. This is the case of the Patripassians who thought that the Father himself had become incarnate and had suffered on the cross.
For Tertullian, however, this formula meant unity of substance and not singularity of number. The matter would gain momentum with Arius, saying that the Son was the first creation of the Father, and lead to the Council of Nicaea in 325 where Athanasius would condemn Arius’ position for the second time and affirm that the Logos (Christ) was of the same substance as the Father. Contrary to what Constantine hoped, this was not the end of the controversy; Arius and many bishops continued their argument, even winning over the Emperor Constantius II to their cause and Athanasius was deposed five times from his post as bishop.
This Athanasius is the one mentioned in The Urantia Book and of whom it is said that he “stood so courageously at Nicaea and challenged the assembly with such intrepidity that the council dared not so obscure the concept of the nature of Jesus as to risk the world losing the truth concerning his bestowal. This Greek was Athanasius. Without the eloquence and logic of this believer, the persuasive opinions of Arius would have triumphed.” UB 195:0.18
But in fact, at Nicaea it is still the Father-Son relationship which prevails, even if the Holy Spirit is mentioned he only appears vaguely, at the end of the sentence and without being qualified, unlike the Son.
It was the first Council of Constantinople, in 381, which proclaimed the equal divinity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Things could not stop there, because for everyone there were insoluble questions arising from the fact that the Logos was considered the second person of the Trinity. The most bizarre and irritating questions made Jesus appear to be his own son and the incarnation of an eternal being dying on the cross did not simplify the problem.
Quite naturally, as theologians deepened their knowledge, they began to wonder what was the role of Mary, mother of Jesus, and the Council of Ephesus, in 431, settled the question known as the “Theotokos”, she was therefore decreed Mother of God.
More anecdotal perhaps, some Gnostics even went so far as to present the Trinity to Muhammad as being the Father, the Logos and… Mary. We understand that the prophet of Allah rejected the notion of Trinity as impious.
The Trinitarian problem thus posed has persisted to this day and this is why we find, particularly in the United States, Unitarian Churches which deny the Trinity. A simple glance at the web will show you the vigor of the antitrinitarians in our time. It will also show the embarrassment of Trinitarian Christians who have no other solution than to recognize in the Trinity, a great mystery.
Readers of The Urantia Book have the incredible opportunity to overcome these confrontations by noticing that the second person of the Trinity is not Jesus but the Eternal Son.
Gone are the problems of antecedent and co-eternity of the incarnate Son, finished, or almost, the Theotokos.
All that remains for us is to examine the relationships of the Father, the Son and the Spirit in eternity and in the relationships of the Trinity of Paradise with the Triunity and with the Ultimate and Absolute Trinities. But there, yes, we are also before a great mystery.
Jean Royer