Topic

God and Trinity

Who God is: one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, sharing one divine nature while remaining distinct from each other.

The early church settled the main lines in the 300s. The Council of Nicaea (325) rejected Arianism and said the Son is of the same substance as the Father. The Council of Constantinople (381) affirmed the full divinity of the Holy Spirit and expanded the creed.

The lasting dispute here is about how the Spirit proceeds. The West added the Filioque (“and the Son”) to the creed, while the East holds to procession from the Father. The disagreement was one of the causes of the Great Schism of 1054.