Analyzing trinity PT. 4. Church fathers

Salam!
Today’s article will be part 4 of our resurrected analyzing trinity series.
Be sure to read parts 1-3 of analyzing trinity. Part 4 will be its own mini series within the series, and this article will merely be an introduction.
Introduction:
Throughout the series analyzing trinity, we explored some problems with the Christian doctrine of the trinity, from a logical, philosophical, and scriptural perspective. However, there is another perspective worth covering, and that of course being the early church, primarily the first 3 centuries of christianity.
For Christians, especially catholic and orthodox, the early church plays a vital role in establishing Christianity and Christian doctrine. For protestants, the early church fathers were great theologians with great knowledge of the scriptures, and play a vast historical role in the construction of the new testament and Christian theology.
However, for branches of Christianity such as Catholicism and orthodoxy, the church fathers are shown a greater deal of respect. Their writings are not just historical insights and useful tools to gage theology and tradition, rather the writings of the fathers are an authority in establishing and defending Christian doctrine and cannon.
Hence, the church fathers are viewed as not just mear theologians, but people who are leaders in the church for their establishing and defending of the Christian doctrines, and their involvement in Christian tradition.
Now that we have cleared up the different understanding of the church fathers, time to bring it back to the trinity.
Many Christians, especially catholic and orthodox, propound that the early church fathers were orthodox trinitarians. When I say orthodox, I merely refer to the trinity established by the Council of Nicaea.
Nevertheless, the claim made by Christians is that the early church fathers posited the doctrine of the trinity, though not using the same language, IE 1 universal essense 3 distinct persons etc. They argue that though the church fathers didn’t articulate the trinity using language from today or from Nicaea, the theological concept of the doctrine of the trinity is present with in the church father’s writings.
However, in order to evaluate the claim, its important to define the trinity.
What is trinity?
Trinitarian theology posits the following 4 statements.
1. there is one God.
2. which or who in some sense contains or consists of three persons’, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
3. who are equally divine.
4. statements 1-3 are eternally the case.
The trinity posits the idea that all 3 persons are co-equal, co-eternal, and independent. They are equally divine and possess the same divine atributes, omnipotence, omniscience, etc. One person cannot have limited knowledge or power.
In light of this definition, we can conclude that the writers must clearly express the belief in 1 God, and 3 co-equal, co-eternal, divine persons.
Another thing to note here is that the terminology itself does not prove the trinity on its own. For instance, many church fathers articulate the concept of the father, the son, and holy spirit. However, this does not mean that they are trinitarians. It is entirely possible to believe in the father, son, and holy spirit and still be a heretic. Modalists, partialists, subordinationists and other made up herecies can still posit that the father son and holy spirit are real, but this does not make them trinitarians.
The belief in more than 1 God, less or more than 3 divine persons at any time, and/or ontological subordination in the godhead is not consistent with trinitarian theology. hence, if any of the early church fathers within the first 3 centuries of christianity penned any of the above, they were not trinitarians.
Why does it matter?
Christians upon reading this might say, well why does it matter if the fathers were trinitarians or not? We have the bible, and the ecumenical councils, so why is this so important.
. If it is true that the most important doctrine of the Christian faith is not present within the earliest writers, this would be problematic for several reasons.
Firstly, it would be problematic for the catholic church, since a lot of the church fathers that will be written about were declared saints by it. If the church fathers who were declared saints were not trinitarians, this means that the catholic church declared a heretic to be a saint. Since it is the belief of the catholics that the church cannot err or declaring sainthood, this would pose a problem for their infallibility.
Next, it would have implications on what Christ and his apostles taught.
A lot of the church fathers are said to have met the disciples of Christ, such as John, Peter, and others. If the church fathers were not trinitarians, this could be an implication that the apostles, which the writers took their information from, were not orthodox trinitarians. This is a problem as the disciples got their information from Christ. So if Christ gave his disciples information that they gave to the church fathers, and we see clearly that the church fathers were not trinitarians, this means that christ and his apostles did not teach the trinity or did not convey it to the fathers.
Finally, it would have implications on interpreting the new testament.
If the new testament teaches the trinity clearly as many Christians argue, why is it that the early church fathers, who have great knowledge of the scriptures, completely contradict this? If we see that the early fathers were not trinitarians, this could imply that the new testament does not clearly teach the trinity. And if the new testament does not teach the trinity, the Christians have practically no ground to stand on.
Conclusion and connecting the dots to Islam:
Although this article has not went into the text of the fathers to examine whether they were trinitarians or not, it is still an important one nonetheless. We have cleared up what the trinity is, the different views on the early church fathers, and why it is important for them to be trinitarians.
In Islam, the salaf, early muslims, were in full agreement with regards to the nature of God, Allah. No early muslim scholar from the first 3 generations, or even after that, has ever penned anything which contradicts the Islamic doctrine of Tawhid, that Allah alone is lord, and that he is absolutely 1 with no partners.
This series is far from over. As my knowledge grows in the early fathers, more articles will come out with an article per father.
Stick around for the article on the first church father of the series, Ignatius of Antioch!