The concept of 'The Holy Trinity' as been a thorn in the side for Christians for almost two millennia, causing violence and bloodshed on an unimaginable scale. Now in this period of 'calmness' can anyone explain logically the theory of this bewildering belief. I don't expect any quick explanation, but would be happy with something that's remotely plausible,
I appreciate that his is not an easy one for anyone to answer, for Augustine of Hippo felt compelled to write the 15 volume De Trinitate in its defence, and he couldn't persuade many of his fellow believers.
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From what I've read, some historians posit that the notion of the trinity was created (in about the 4th century CE) to whitewash the discrepancies found in what was becoming today's bible. Constantine's goal was unifying the many sects and teachings of christianity, most likely for ease of control. He likely didn't really care what they came up with to reconcile the discrepancies, just that they came up with something.
I did not study a lot about this, but from what I have found out it appears that its origin comes from the concept of the roman pagan Trinity. Mostly from Mithraism, thus Pagan theology and Greek philosophy.
http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/Contents/doctrine/The%20Origin%20of%20the%2...
In the roman period they divided the gods in groups of 3, which were related to each other.
To top it off, Christianity was most likely invented by the Flavians after 70AD
The Flavians were 3;
The father, the son which were military generals and the other son which was a politician.
ALL 3 of them became emperors and GODs with their own Caesar cults and feasts.
The Father Vespasian Flavius was deified(make him a god) by the senate after his death since Titus Flavius(his son) wanted to make the Family name Divine and himself SON OF A GOD.
This is most likely when the gospels were published where you have Jesus predicting the the SON OF MAN (TITUS) will destroy the Temple of god in Jerusalem in 70 AD.
Titus did destroy it in exactly 70 AD so he fulfilled the prophecy of Jesus and became THE SON OF MAN and divine.
This enabled him to become emperor after his Father Vespasian.(Vespasian became emperor by attacking Rome and capturing it)
These emperors were pagan Romans and they most likely mixed the Jewish religion with pagan ideas to create Christianity, a religion which promoted the family name as divine.
The trinity comes from this mixture, Christmas, Easter, priests, confession, consecration, blessing and a physical church also come from pagan ideas.
However after the 3 flavians fall from power the trinity lost most of its influence and importance in the christian believers but it was still popular with the pagans.
Later in history when an other Flavian came to power(Flavius Constantine the great), he had no use for it because he was the 4'th emperor which was a Flavian so he did not reinforce the trinity idea and did not popularize it.
He just enforced the idea that they are all one of the same and that's it.
He did not really care about the details, all he cared was that Christianity made him god above all other gods.
I fail to see how the concept of "The Holy Trinity" has lead to "violence and bloodshed on an unimaginable scale".
In later period after constantine, a lot of the church fathers started to be fanatic about what god was and what he wanted since their faith was stronger since they did not have the knowledge(like the church fathers) that this was just propaganda for an agenda(like Christians today).
So what happened waas that they disagreed on many theological issues and considered whoever disagreeing with them as acting against god's will.
The call it Blashphemy, the attempt to change the word of god.
The trinity was one of these subjects. The one that causes more bloodshed.
A lot of Christians killing Christians happened because they could not agree on this matter.
It ended after the side which was saying that Jesus was just a man were completely killed and today we have peace.
That is how Christian literalists 'discussed' matters in those times.
Of-course this happened after more then half the Christians were killed (we call Gnostics) that were saying that Jesus was just an allegory and he did not even exist.
BTW the Gnostic Christians were right in their claim but they got wiped out because of the literals were militaristic while the Gnostics were pacifistic.
Who wins with the sword writes history and also who was right lol
The funny part is that the decedents of those litterals had adopted the Gnostic side of Christianity to strengthen their con game.
That is why you find apologetics saying; "this and that part of the bible was just a story", etc...
Can you see now?
If you think that the concept of the Holy Trinity caused no bloodshed, ask all the Unitarian groups in England, Poland and Hungary who suffered considerably during the 15th and 16th centuries for their disbelief in the Trinity. Ask also those thousands who were persecuted during the Inquisition for their heretical disbelief in the Trinity. And not forgetting all those who lost their lives due to the 'filioque' of the Great Schism of 1054, when the church split into the Eastern and Western Christian Churches, don't tell me this was a peaceful dichotomy.
Christians made their religions more complicated because of this trinity belief. That is why Christianity is also divided into different churches and religious organizations.