Doctrine on the Godhead and the Trinity

Both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of God claim amongst their earliest leaders, those who held a binitarian” (sometimes called Semi-Arian) view of the Godhead–but one changed.

Roman Catholic Church Sources:

The Catholic Saint Irenaeus taught that only the Father and Son are God:

…there is none other called God by the Scriptures except the Father of all, and the Son, and those who possess the adoption (Irenaeus. Adversus haereses, Book IV, Preface, Verse 4. Excerpted from Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts & James Donaldson. American Edition, 1885. Online Edition Copyright © 2004 by K. Knight).

According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, around 212 A.D. Roman Catholic Saint and leading theologian was essentially a ditheist:

Hippolytus, on the contrary, stood uncompromisingly for a real difference between the Son (Logos) and the Father, but so as to represent the Former as a Divine Person almost completely separate from God (Ditheism) and at the same time altogether subordinate to the Father (Subordinationism)…Hippolytus was the most important theologian and the most prolific religious writer of the Roman Church in the pre-Constantinian era (St. Hippolytus of Rome, The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1910).

Hippolytus (somewhat diversely in the “Contra Noetum” and in the “Philosophumena,” if they are both his) taught the same division of the Son from the Father as traditional, and he records that Pope Callistus condemned him as a Ditheist (Chapman J. Transcribed by Kevin Cawley. Fathers of the Church. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI. Copyright © 1909 by Robert Appleton Company. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. Knight. Nihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York).

The Catholic Encyclopedia article on Semi-Arianism states,

Semiarians…A name frequently given to the conservative majority in the East in the fourth century…showing that the very name of father implies a son of like substance…rejected the Divinity of the Holy Ghost…

Although Catholic writers have had many definitions of “Semi-Arians” (most of which disagree with the Church of God position), one that somewhat defines the binitarian view would possibly be this one from Epiphanius in the mid-4th Century,

Semi-Arians…hold the truly orthodox view of the Son, that he was forever with the Father…but has been begotten without beginning and not in time…But all of these blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and do not count him in the Godhead with the Father and the Son (Epiphanius. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III (Sects 47-80), De Fide). Section VI, Verses 1,1 and 1,3. Translated by Frank Williams. EJ Brill, New York, 1994, pp.471-472).

Yet The Catholic Encyclopedia teaches:

It is impossible to believe explicitly in the mystery of Christ, without faith in the Trinity…Wherefore just as, before Christ, the mystery of Christ was believed explicitly by the learned, but implicitly and under a veil, so to speak, by the simple, so too was it with the mystery of the Trinity. And consequently, when once grace had been revealed, all were bound to explicit faith in the mystery of the Trinity (The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Literally translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Online Edition Copyright © 2003 by Kevin Knight. Nihil Obstat. F. Innocentius Apap, O.P., S.T.M., Censor. Theol. Imprimatur. Edus. Canonicus Surmont, Vicarius Generalis. Westmonasterii. APPROBATIO ORDINIS. Nihil Obstat. F. Raphael Moss, O.P., S.T.L. and F. Leo Moore, O.P., S.T.L. Imprimatur. F. Beda Jarrett, O.P., S.T.L., A.M., Prior Provincialis Angliæ).

Furthermore, the Roman Catholics also teach that the trinity did not clearly come from the Bible and cannot be fully understood:

In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together….The Vatican Council has explained the meaning to be attributed to the term mystery in theology. It lays down that a mystery is a truth which we are not merely incapable of discovering apart from Divine Revelation, but which, even when revealed, remains “hidden by the veil of faith and enveloped, so to speak, by a kind of darkness” (Const., “De fide. cath.”, iv). (Joyce G.H. The Blessed Trinity. The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV Copyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton Company).

And the Cathecism of the Catholic Church admits the Church (not the Bible) had to come up with terms of “philosophical” (pagan/Greek) origin to explain it::

251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop its own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance,” “person,” or “hypostasis,” “relation” and so on (Catechism of the Catholic Church. Imprimatur Potest +Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Doubleday, NY 1995, p. 74).

Church of God Sources:

Polycarp wrote:

Now may the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the eternal High-priest Himself, the [Son of] God Jesus Christ, build you up in faith and truth, and in all gentleness and in all avoidance of wrath and in forbearance and long suffering and in patient endurance and in purity; and may He grant unto you a lot and portion among His saints, and to us with you, and to all that are under heaven, who shall believe on our Lord and God Jesus Christ and on His Father (Polycarp. The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians in APOSTOLIC FATHERS (as translated by J.B. LIGHTFOOT) 12:6,7).

Melito wrote:

No eye can see Him, nor thought apprehend Him, nor language describe Him; and those who love Him speak of Him thus: `Father, and God of Truth” (Melito. A Discourse Which Was in the Presence of Antoninus Caesar).

For the deeds done by Christ after His baptism, and especially His miracles, gave indication and assurance to the world of the Deity hidden in His flesh. For, being at once both God and perfect man likewise…He concealed the signs of His Deity, although He was the true God existing before all ages (Melito. On the Nature of Christ. From Roberts and Donaldson).

From the Living Church of God’s Official Statement of Fundamental Beliefs:

WHO AND WHAT IS GOD? The Father and the Son comprise the “Godhead.” There is one God (1 Corinthians 8:4 and Deuteronomy 6:4). Scripture shows that God is a divine Family which began with two, God the Father and the Word (Genesis 1:26; Ephesians 2:19; 3:15; Hebrews 2:10-11) (Official Statement of Fundamental Beliefs. LCG, 2004).

While early church writers (called “Fathers” by the Roman Catholics) specifically called the Father and the Son God, it was the heretic Valentinus who developed the idea of God existing as three hypostasis.

Now while the following is not a Church of God source, note what a Catholic bishop named Marcellus of Ancyra wrote on the nature of God around the middle of the fourth century,

Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God…These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him ‘On the Three Natures’. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes and Plato.” (Source: Logan A. Marcellus of Ancyra (Pseudo-Anthimus), ‘On the Holy Church’: Text, Translation and Commentary. Verses 8-9. Journal of Theological Studies, NS, Volume 51, Pt. 1, April 2000, p.95 ).

Perhaps it should be mentioned here that history records that Polycarp denounced Valentinus when Polycarp visited Rome, that the Roman Catholics tolerated Valentinus for decades AFTER he was denounced by Polycarp, and it was only later that the Roman Catholics considered that Valentinus was a heretic. Furthermore, Valentinus was a Gnostic heretic and held many other odd views (please see the article Valentinus: The Gnostic Trinitarian Heretic).

Those who accept the doctrine of the trinity, are, in fact, accepting a doctrine that was introduced by a denounced heretic.

Recall that even “The Catholic Encyclopedia” admits that the Semi-Arians were the majority in Asia Minor as late as the fourth century–if the trinity was such a fundamental doctrine of the true church, why did it not become the majority position until later in the fourth century?

More information on these subjects can be found in the article Binitarian View: One God, Two Beings from Before the Beginning which documents the historical truth of the nature of God and some heretical doctrines on that subject.