Apostolic Succession vs Triune God

While Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and other sects disagree on myriad doctrines, there is generally one point of harmony: the Triune God.

While the subject of my forthcoming book, the Trinity as we know it today was developed over more than 300 years. It was not until Roman emperor Theodosius I created “Catholic Christians” by imperial edict in 380 that Nicene-centric theologians gained dominance. It was under this same edict and emperor that the Council of Constantinople met—that is, a collection of bishops hand selected by Theodosius met—to produce the creed that is often held in modernity as the Nicene Creed. This creed put forward the “truth” that God is a single essence (ousia) manifested in three distinct persons (hypostases) but is also somehow neither three gods (tritheism) or a single God working in three modes (modalism).

This is the established reality of virtually all Christian groups, including Catholics and Orthodox (Cathodox).

 However, this idea is completely incompatible with another Cathodox claim: Apostolic Succession. This doctrine is an assertion of institutional authority, that the original Apostles entrusted secret, divine wisdom that was not recorded in Scripture, but was instead transmitted orally to clergy. This claim is essentially one of authority: “X is true, because Y said so,” or is otherwise used to claim that whatever the church institutional declares is simply true because they declared it to be.

But this is not only a claim of authority. Perhaps even more critically, Apostolic Succession asserts a claim of continuity, that the Apostles of Jesus transmitted divine truth—fully and faithfully—through an unbroken chain of successors. This transmission is often said to include truths not explicitly recorded in Scripture, preserved instead through sacred tradition.

This is one of, if not the defining axiom of Cathodoxy. At its core, Apostolic Succession also makes several claims of continuity:

The truth was known at the beginning

The truth was preserved without corruption

The truth was handed down intact

But the Creed introduces a competing claim, that the defining truth of Christianity required over 300 years, imperial intervention, and formal articulation to be established.

These two claims cannot both be true. However, while I generally dissect a single doctrine at a time, instead we are going to pit Apostolic Succession and the “Nicene” Creed of 381 against one another and test for consistency within the broader Cathodox framework.

But this brings us back to the original topic, that the positive claim is made—sometimes explicit, often implied—that to be truly Christian one must affirm the doctrine of the Trinity as defined in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (381). To be Christian, then, requires submitting to the metaphysical formula produced at that council, a formula that defined God as one essence in three co-equal, co-eternal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But this raises a profound and unavoidable question: If this doctrine is essential to Christianity, and apostolic succession is true, why did it require 350 years, two Roman emperors, a Roman edict, and secular enforcement—including public execution—for it to be realized?

If, as Apostolic Succession requires, the doctrine was already known, already preserved, and already essential…

why was it not already clear?

The implications are far more serious than most are willing to admit. If the 381 formulation of the Trinity is the defining boundary of Christianity, then consistency demands some rather uncomfortable conclusions.

First, the Apostles—Peter the Apostle, Paul the Apostle, and the rest—did not preach Christianity in its complete form

Second, the earliest believers recorded in Acts were not actually, fully Christian.

Third, the early Church Fathers, such as Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, lived and died without affirming what is now considered essential doctrine.

Therefore, claiming submission to the Creed as a prerequisite of being Christan means that early Christians, patriarchs, and even the original Apostles were not actually Christian.

To resolve this tension, some appeal to a hidden transmission, claiming that the Apostles fully understood the Trinity, but it was handed down implicitly and clarified over time. However, this explanation creates more problems than it solves. If the doctrine was known by the Apostles, essential to true faith, and preserved through faithful transmission, then why did it take over three centuries, imperial edicts, and intense controversy to define it?

And why did they not record it in Scripture?

If the Apostles disseminated the truth of Christianity through successors, then the Trinitarian formula should have existed in the Apostolic era. Otherwise, Jesus Christ, his Apostles, and the first generations of so-called successors all failed to accurately explain how to become a Christian and even what a Christian was.

In other words: If the Creed defines Christianity, then early Christianity was not actually Christian.

This includes the apostles themselves.

Thus, if the Niceno-Constantinople Creed defines what it means to be a Christian, then apostolic succession can only be a myth, and the faithful “Christians” of the 1st through 4th centuries were not actually Christians at all, including the Apostles and the original church patriarchs. Ironically, this would include those still defined as saints by Cathodox institutions.

Alternatively, the truth claim of the Creed cannot survive Apostolic Succession. If the Creed’s claim to authority holds, there can be no unchanging doctrine passed secretly through succession. If Christian truth is passed unchanged and perfect through apostolic succession, then the Creed of 381 must be an error since it required two Roman emperors, state edicts, and secular force to become “truth.”

Only one of these claims can survive the other.

We are now left with a forced choice:

Option 1: Affirm the Creed

If the Creed is authoritative and defines true Christianity, then:

Apostolic succession failed to preserve essential truth

The apostles did not fully teach Christianity

The early Church lived in doctrinal deficiency

In this case, apostolic succession is exposed as a myth.

Option 2: Affirm Apostolic Succession

If apostolic succession is true—if doctrine was faithfully transmitted from the beginning—then:

The full truth of Christianity existed in the apostolic age

It did not require centuries of development

It did not require imperial enforcement to be defined

In this case, the 381 Creed cannot be a necessary or authoritative definition of Christianity. It becomes, at best, a later theological construction.

There Is No Third Option.

Attempts to reconcile these two claims inevitably collapse into contradiction.

If doctrine can “develop” into something essential that was not clearly present at the beginning, then:

Truth is no longer fixed

Apostolic transmission is no longer reliable

Future “developments” could redefine Christianity yet again

If, on the other hand, truth was fixed and preserved from the beginning, then the need for the Creed exposes a failure in transmission or reveals that the Creed itself is an addition.

Either way, the system cannot sustain both claims simultaneously. One or both must be destabilized or erased in order for the other to remain true to its asserted form.

The institutional Church is faced with a dilemma it cannot escape: It can have its Creed, or it can have its Apostolic Succession—but it cannot have both. To affirm the Creed is to abandon the idea of a faithful, unbroken transmission of truth from the apostles. To affirm apostolic succession is to reject the necessity—and possibly the validity—of the Creed.

For the sake of convenience, let us translate this dilemma as a syllogism:

P1: Either essential Christian doctrine was fully present and transmitted from the beginning, or it was developed later.

P2: Apostolic Succession requires that essential doctrine was fully present and transmitted from the beginning.

P3: The Creed represents doctrine developed later.

C1: Therefore, Apostolic Succession and the Creed are mutually exclusive.

Put simply, if the truth was preserved, it did not need to be developed, and if it needed to be developed, then it was not preserved.

There is no reconciliation between the two.

Only a choice.

The centralized church can have either its Creed or its apostolic succession. If it chooses its Creed, it must condemn untold thousands of Christians, including its own patriarchs and the original Apostles, if not also admit that apostolic succession is an illusion.

If it chooses apostolic succession, and with it the idea of doctrine developed over time, then it must reject its Creed. After all, perhaps some future class of apostolic successors will “discover” a new, binding Creed and redefine Christianity itself.

So the only remaining question is which doctrine the Cathodox intitution will choose to preserve.