The subsequent text is the written material of the closing lecture of the 6^th Symposium of the Matter Evolution Subcommittee of the Geonomy Scientific Committee of HAS entitled "Trialities in Evolution", held in Budapest, 1995. The Volume was then published as KFKI-1995-21, but without this lecture. As Chief Organiser, I was rather busy with the Volume, and wanted to give it to printing in that year, so I did not write the material of this lecture then.

Another reason was that the lecture was a rather short one, only for demonstration. You see, the Symposium wanted to discuss various Trialities, starting from the 3-dimensionality of Space, through the triality in Quantum Chromodynamics, trial classification of meteorites, trialities in colour vision, brain structure or ancient & medieval societies. It seemed a good idea to close with Holy Trinity, but I was unable to get a theologian, so I gave up, and made a simple demonstration to close the Symposium at the proper height.

However the transparency survived, and some notes & memory. So after a substantial time I have finally produced the written text. Enjoy it if you can.

ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE STRUCTURE OF HOLY TRINITY

B. Lukács

President of the Matter Evolution Subcommittee of the Geonomy Scientific Committee of HAS

H-1525 Bp. 114. Pf. 439., Budapest, Hungary

lukacs@rmki.kfki.hu

ABSTRACT

A simple geometric construction is shown to translate some theologic statements to transparent geometry.

1. INTRODUCTION

Holy Trinity is a structure which can be demonstrated either by a triangular two-simensional Figure, or by combination of 3 fundamental colours. Here I take the first possibility. Then some theological statements can be geometrized.

This lecture is a substitute; I hoped to be able to get a theologian for a lecture about the structure of Holy Trinity, but I was unsuccessful.

2. THE TRINITY

Christian Trinity is 3 persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost). According to general consensus, one cannot be Christian if he rejects the idea of Holy Trinity. (Hungary is an exception, in 1568 the Parliament at Torda defined Unitarians (in Hungary that means a modern form of Arians) as the fourth Christian religion. They were regarded simply as ultra-Calvinists.) So in some sense the whole Trinity is the successor of God of older parts of Old Testament. If one prefers this view, then in the evolution process the original notion of Unitarian godhead specialised into 3. However another view is possible too, that in old times only one person (aspect, or anything) was recognised and then the other two were gradually discovered too. Being a physicist, I try to remain in a middle position.

Of course, here Trinity is viewed from a Trinitarian perspective. For an Antitrinitarian the structure which is discussed, is simply trivial.

3. THE HISTORY

I will be brief; anybody can enhance the treatment with more Churches. First look at the Figure. The scenario is the interior & border of an equilateral triangle. In it the historical evolution is a path.

The solid curve is the evolution of Western (filioque) religions. The important stages were reached at definite times; first a Table is given about the chronology and then come the explanations.

a	c. -1200	Moses
b	c. -50	Book of Wisdom (Sophia)
c	30	St. John Baptist recognises Jesus
d	325	Synod of Nicea
e	796	Synod of Frejus

Now let us see the respective stages.

Stage a: Moses tells his followers the idea of One God, together with fundaments of the religion.

Then for centuries the idea evolves, but the godhead still does not have any inner structure.

Stage b: An Alexandrine theologian formulates Book of Wisdom. That Book is fully canonical (deuterocanonical) for Catholic Church, indeed the Greek Alexandrine Old Testament is the original for Catholics. In Book of Wisdom there is God's Wisdom besides God Himself. The author regards Her quasi as some emanation of God (see especially Verses 7.22 - 8.8). Wisdom in this Book is clearly analogous with the Holy Spirit of New Testament. Also notice that the Book is Book of Sophia in the original Greek; Sophia is feminine just as Ruach (Spirit) is in Hebrew. While henceforth the structure of godhead is no more trivial, obviously God/Father has more influence than Wisdom/Sophia/Holy Spirit.

Not too much later Philo of Alexandria writes a study on God's visit to Abr(ah)am at Mamre [1]. As it is well known, Abram was visited by three heavenly visitors, clad very similarly, and Exodus does not tell that two of them had been angels. Philo suggests that the two others were God's two important Energies: the Energies of Creating & Ruling. Maybe he splits Wisdom into two.

Stage c: St. John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, with water in contrast to later baptizations with Holy Spirit (Mat. 3, 11; Acts 1, 5). Beginning of the recognized active role of a third Person of Trinity.

Relative importance of Persons then starts to fluctuate for believers. Mainstream is represented by Synodes.

Stage d: The Nicean Synod refuses Arianism. So, the Synod's opinion is that although Son is created, His importance/potential is comparable to that of Father.

Greek Orthodox Church stops here, and looks into details. However Latins make one more step.

Stage e: The Frejus Synode defines the text of Credo with the word filioque (also from the Son), meaning the origin of Holy Spirit. (This word cannot be found on East.) Both Pope and Charlemagne consent.

Since Stage e Father and Son are rather equally potent. Both Father and Son can generate Holy Spirit, but not backwards. The Frejus decision was conjectured by St. Augustine 4 centuries before, who told that Holy Spirit bounds Father and Son [2]. Observe that a coupling vector boson is emitted by the fermions, but coupling bosons can emit fermions only in pairs and with energy barriers.

Mainstream Western Christianity (both Catholic and Protestant) are near Stage e even now. Small Churches try various positions. Without completeness, the next Table mentions some; explanations will follow.

Gnostic	c. 150	Bishop Marcion
Dux Novus	1200	Joachim of Fiore
Unitarian	1568	F. Dávid
Sabbatarian	1588	A. Eôssi & S. Péchy
Pentecostian	1907	L. Pethrus

Bishop Marcion taught a fundamentally Platonic/Neoplatonic Christianity. There is a Final/Farthest God, who emanated lesser divinities, they again, and so on for a while. He wanted Material World to be created, but he believed the task is much below Him. So he selected a lowly Divine Demiurge, who was familiar to work with dirty Matter. Alas, the Demiurge made errors. When the Farthest God saw this (after some time), he emanated directly a Christ, and sent Him to correct. So in this scheme the Farthest God does not appear on the scene, the God of Old Testament is much lower than Christ/Son, and Holy Spirit is either absent, or a helping emanation. The center of gravity of Marcian Gnosticism is near to Son.

Joachim of Fiore around 1200 predicted a future epoch of World starting in the middle of 13^th century [3], [4]. His idea was as follows. From Moses until Christ there was cca. 1250 years. During that Law governed, only Father was honoured, the emblematic figure is Abraham. Then came Son, Christ, and Grace governs. Now, after 1250 years will come the Government of Holy Spirit, bringing Love & Freedom. The earthly leader will be the Dux Novus. So the nicest thing will be something centered near to Holy Spirit. Soon rumours told that the Dux Novus would be Frederic II Hohenstaufen, but this was erroneous.

Unitarian is a Hungarian religion recognized by Parliament in 1568. The name itself has multiple use; I mean the religion whose Supreme Bishop resides at Claudiopolis/Clausenburg/Kolozsvár/Cluj, Transylvania. It is essentially Arian. More definitely, Jesus was not Divine, but He is that now, because God adopted Him for His good teaching and cruel suffering. Holy Spirit does not appear. So the center of gravity is near to the Only God.

Sabbatarian is another Hungarian religion, founded by A. Eôssi (theology) and S. Péchy (power). The general idea goes as follows. God indeed did send Jesus to announce the new laws. However that mission became unsuccessful (do things look as we were saved?). So He will send a new Saviour after some time. Until that the old rules are better to obey, as far as we know. Until that the center is almost exactly Father.

Pentecostian is a religion which practically started in Sweden, but now exists worldwide. It emphasizes the importance at the Descent of Holy Spirit on the Pentecost of Year 38. Holy Spirit seems the dominant person here.

The exact locations of the respective points would, of course, need definitions of distances amongst ideas, not impossible, but pointless now.

4. CLOSING REMARK

Since I only wanted to demonstrate the possibilities of a geometric representation in theology, and had to close somehow the Symposium, I do not want to draw conclusions. The Figure may suggest conclusions for anybody.

REFERENCES

[1] Philo Judaeus: On Abraham, Chaps. XXIV-XXV, in The Works of Philo Judaeus, transl. by Ch. D. Yonge, H. G. Bohn, London, 1853

[2] Karen Armstrong: A History of God. A. Knopf, New York, 1994

[3] G. L. Seidler: Mysl polyticzna sredniowiecza. Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, Cracow, 1964

[4] A. Toynbee: A Study of History. Weatherwane, New York, 1979

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ADDITION FROM 2005

A. Mehta chose a somewhat similar approach to Zoroastrism/Mazdaism; for the relevant part see http://homepage.mac.com/ardeshir/Zarathushtra-Ch.1-6,Draft.pdf. However there is not real homology. In Mazdaism God + Aspects are rather septarian, so you would need a 6-dimensional demonstration, not too transparent. However look a similarity between the viewpoints of Mehta and Philo of Alexandria. Of course Philo was not too certain about the exact number of Energies.

My HomePage, with some other studies, if you are curious.