[spunkets]

"Did you say the Trinity has not always existed?"

God always existed. In as much as the incarnation goes, that is what the Trinity is all about. In fact no one would have even thought of the concept "trinity" except for the fact of the incarnation.

Note the Jews never distinguished between the Father and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was just the spirit of God. They were one and were never distinguished as 2 persons.

The incarnation occurred in time. Although time elsewhere doesn't correspond to time in this world, time is a measure of the persistence of existence. It makes no sense to me, that God decided infinitely long ago, to create man and incarnate. So even though God never changed, He still does things in time. He didn't decide infinitely long ago, to do an infinite number of things. That makes no sense at all.

So yes the Trinity did have a beginning as per above. That does not change God however. It simply means He had done something new. It does not mean He changed, anymore than I would if I started selling fasteners. It's simply a new experience; I wouldn't be a new spunkets.

[bornacatholic]

1. We believe in one God the Father all powerful, maker of all things both seen and unseen. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten begotten from the Father, that is from the substance [Gr. ousias, Lat. substantia] of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten [Gr. gennethenta, Lat. natum] not made [Gr. poethenta, Lat. factum], Consubstantial [Gr. homoousion, Lat. unius substantiae (quod Graeci dicunt homousion)] with the Father, through whom all things came to be, both those in heaven and those in earth; for us humans and for our salvation he came down and became incarnate, became human, suffered and rose up on the third day, went up into the heavens, is coming to judge the living and the dead. And in the holy Spirit.

2. And those who say

1. "there once was when he was not", and "before he was begotten he was not", and that

2. he came to be from things that were not, or from another hypostasis [Gr. hypostaseos] or substance [Gr. ousias, Lat. substantia], affirming that the Son of God is subject to change or alteration these the catholic and apostolic church anathematises.

*As I understand you, you do not agree with the Faith held/taught at Nicaea. Is that correct?

[The_Reader_David]

You seem to have confounded ontology and epistemology.

No one would ever have thought of quantum mechanics before classical physics broke down in the face of problems explaining the two-slit experiment and the photoelectric effect, but that doesn't mean electrons, photons and the lot haven't been quantum mechanical since the Creation.

God is always the All-Holy Trinity from before time. That He transcends the distinction between unity and multiplicity is plain enough as a conclusion from "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One God" and "God is love". (Since how from before creation can one alone, one in the ordinary sense of unity conceived of in this-worldly terms, be love?) He reveals Himself as Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the baptism of Our Lord in the Jordan, but indications of the Trinity are to be found in the Old Testament: How is it that the Lord speaks of Himself in plural, "Come let Us make Man in Our image and likeness"? "Before the morning star I begot thee. . ." Though neither verse can be used as a proof-text against Arius' error of holding the Word to be the first creature, both tell against the variation you propose of holding that God 'became' the Trinity when we learned that He is the Trinity.