Falsehood of the Trinity

In Your Name, Allahumma

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, apart from being thinly veiled tritheism from our Islamic and Quranic perspective, was not even held to by the early Christian community. The concept is nowhere clearly spelled out in the Christian Bible, nor is their any historical record of the Apostles of Jesus teaching this false doctrine. The earliest mention of the Trinity is by Theophilus of Antioch (d. 183 CE) in the late 2nd century CE, but even then it is not defined according to so-called "orthodox" conception. On the contrary, Theophilus writes "the Trinity, of God, and His Word [Logos], and His Wisdom [Sophia]" (Apology to Autolycus)

Furthermore, Tertullian (d. 220 CE), who did believe and promote the false doctrine of the Trinity, was forced to admit that at least in his time the majority of ordinary Christian believers (note he calls them believers) not only rejected the Trinity but held it to be worship of multiple gods: "The simple, indeed, (I will not call them unwise and unlearned) who always constitute the majority of believers, are startled at the dispensation (of the Three in One), on the ground that their very rule of faith withdraws them from the world's plurality of gods to the one only true God; not understanding that, although He is the one only God, He must yet be believed in with His own dispensation. The numerical order and distribution of the Trinity they assume to be a division of the Unity; whereas the Unity which derives the Trinity out of its own self is so far from being destroyed, that it is actually supported by it. They are constantly throwing out against us that we are preachers of two gods and three gods, while they take to themselves preeminently the credit of being worshipers of the One God; just as if the Unity itself with irrational deductions did not produce heresy, and the Trinity rationally considered constitute the truth. We, say they, maintain the Monarchy (or, sole government of God)" (Against Praxeas, ch.III)