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Development of the conception of God

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Overview

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Attributes and nature

Depiction

Kingdom of God and eschatology

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Kingship and Kingdom

End times

Judgement

Trinitarianism

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History and foundation

The doctrine

The Father

The Son

The Holy Spirit

Trinitarian differences

Nontrinitarianism

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God in Christianity

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

La Sainte Trinité, painting by Gustave Doré (1866). God the Father presents the body of Christ, his
Divine Son, with the Holy Spirit visible as a dove at the top of the image.

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Theism

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Christianity

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In Christianity, God is the eternal, supreme being who created and preserves all things.[5] Christians
believe in a monotheistic conception of God, which is both transcendent (wholly independent of, and
removed from, the material universe) and immanent (involved in the material universe).[6] Christians
believe in a singular God that exists in a Trinity, which consists of three Persons: God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Christian teachings on the transcendence, immanence, and
involvement of God in the world and his love for humanity exclude the belief that God is of the same
substance as the created universe (rejection of pantheism) but accept that God the Son assumed
hypostatically united human nature, thus becoming man in a unique event known as "the
Incarnation".[10]

Early Christian views of God were expressed in the Pauline epistles and the early Christian creeds,
[13] which proclaimed one God and the divinity of Jesus.[a][18] Although some early sects of
Christianity, such as the Jewish-Christian Ebionites, protested against the deification of Jesus,[19] the
concept of Jesus being one with God was accepted by the majority of Gentile Christians.[20] This
formed one aspect of the split of early Christianity and Judaism, as Gentile Christian views of God
began to diverge from the traditional Jewish teachings of the time.[16]

The theology of the attributes and nature of God has been discussed since the earliest days of
Christianity, with Irenaeus writing in the 2nd century: "His greatness lacks nothing, but contains all
things".[21] In the 8th century, John of Damascus listed eighteen attributes which remain widely
accepted.[22] As time passed, Christian theologians developed systematic lists of these attributes,
some based on statements in the Bible (e.g., the Lord's Prayer, stating that the Father is in Heaven),
others based on theological reasoning.[23][24] The "Kingdom of God" is a prominent phrase in the
Synoptic Gospels, and while there is near unanimous agreement among scholars that it represents a
key element of the teachings of Jesus, there is little scholarly agreement on its exact interpretation.
[25][26]

Although the New Testament does not have a formal doctrine of the Trinity as such, "it does
repeatedly speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit... in such a way as to compel a Trinitarian
understanding of God".[27] Around 200 AD, Tertullian formulated a version of the doctrine of the
Trinity which clearly affirmed the divinity of Jesus.[9][11][28] This concept was later expanded upon
at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD,[27] and a later definitive form was produced by the
Ecumenical Council of 381.[29] The Trinitarian doctrine holds that God the Son, God the Father, and
God the Holy Spirit are all different hypostases (Persons) of one substance,[9][30][31] and is not
traditionally held to be one of tritheism.[9] Trinitarianism was subsequently adopted as the official
theological doctrine through Nicene Christianity thereafter, and forms a cornerstone of modern
Christian understandings of God—however, some Christian denominations hold nontrinitarian views
about God.[35]

Background

Further information: God in Abrahamic religions

Christians, in common with Jews and Muslims, identify with the biblical patriarch Abraham to whom
God revealed himself.[36] It is believed that Abraham was the first to affirm monotheism (the belief
in one God) and had an ideal relationship with God.[36] The Abrahamic religions believe that God
continuously interacted with the descendants of Abraham over millennia; both Christians and Jews
believe that this covenant is recorded in the Hebrew Bible, which most Christian denominations
consider to be (and refer to as) the Old Testament.[36] In the traditional interpretations of
Christianity, God is always referred to with masculine grammatical articles only.[37]

Development of the conception of God

Overview

Main articles: Attributes of God in Christianity and History of Christian theology

Further information: Diversity in early Christian theology, Great Apostasy, Nontrinitarianism, Son of
God (Christianity), and Trinity

A folio from Papyrus 46 containing a copy of 2 Corinthians 11:33–12:9. This folio dates to between
175 and 225 AD.

Early Christian views of God (before the gospels were written) are reflected in the Apostle Paul's
statement in 1 Corinthians 8:5–6,[14] written c. AD 53–54, about twenty years after the crucifixion of
Jesus, and 12–21 years before the earliest of the canonical gospels was written:[16]

...for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and
there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all thing