It is a common claim among Islamic apologists that the Trinity was "invented" at the Council of Nicaea. Yet, any serious study of the writings of the ante-Nicene fathers shows this claim to be completely laughable and more frankly, dishonest (especially for those who have read some of the patristic writings and yet still propogate this lie). I have often noticed that in Islamic-Christian debates, the deity of Christ is more often discussed than the deity of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Blessed Trinity.
Islamic apologist Adnan Rashid, in a debate with Dr. James R. White on the Trinity, made the claim that the early church fathers taught binitarianism (only the Father and Son are God, to the exclusion of the Holy Spirit) "at best".
Similarly, this Islamic website says the following:
"The apostolic faith concerning the Spirit was announced by the second ecumenical council at Constantinople (381) [18]" (http://www.manyprophetsonemessage.com/2017/08/31/did-the-early-church-fathers-believe-in-the-trinity/)
I started doing some research on the early fathers of the church and what they said about the Holy Spirit and His deity. When we take a look at all of the available evidence, we get a very different picture than what is given to us by Muslim apologists.
"we may have fellowship with the champion and noble martyr of Christ, who trod under foot the devil, and perfected the course which, out of love to Christ, he had desired, in Christ Jesus our Lord; by whom, and with whom, be glory and power to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, for evermore! Amen." (The Martyrdom of Ignatius, Chapter 7)
"We wish you, brethren, all happiness, while you walk according to the doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; with whom be glory to God the Father and the Holy Spirit, for the salvation of His holy elect, after whose example the blessed Polycarp suffered, following in whose steps may we too be found in the kingdom of Jesus Christ!” (The Martyrdom of Polycarp, Chapter 22)
"Hence are we called atheists. And we confess that we are atheists, so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with respect to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and the other virtues, who is free from all impurity. But both Him, and the Son (who came forth from Him and taught us these things, and the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to Him), AND THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT, we worship and adore, knowing them in reason and truth, and declaring without grudging to every one who wishes to learn, as we have been taught." (Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 6)
“… From all which we learn that the person of the Holy Spirit was of such authority and dignity, that saving baptism was not complete except by the authority of the most excellent Trinity of them all, i.e., by the naming of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by joining to the unbegotten God the Father, and to His only-begotten Son, the name also of the Holy Spirit. Who, then, is not amazed at the exceeding majesty of the Holy Spirit, when he hears that he who speaks a word against the Son of man may hope for forgiveness; but that he who is guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has not forgiveness, either in the present world or in that which is to come!… But up to the present time we have been able to find no statement in holy Scripture in which the Holy Spirit could be said to be made or created, not even in the way in which we have shown above that the divine wisdom is spoken of by Solomon, or in which those expressions which we have discussed are to be understood of the life, or the word, or the other appellations of the Son of God. The Spirit of God, therefore, which was borne upon the waters, as is written in the beginning of the creation of the world, is, I am of opinion, no other than the Holy Spirit, so far as I can understand; as indeed we have shown in our exposition of the passages themselves, not according to the historical, but according to the spiritual method of interpretation… ” (Origen, De Principiis, Book 1, Chapter 3)
"In accordance with all these things, the: form, moreover, and rule being received from the elders who have lived before us, we also, with a voice in accordance with them, will both acquit ourselves of thanks to you, and of the letter which we are now writing. And to God the Father, and His Son our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, be glory and dominion for ever and ever" (Dionysius the Great, Miscellaneous Writings, "Conclusion of the Entire Treatise")
“The Holy Spirit Himself also, which operates in the prophets, we assert to be an effluence of God, flowing from Him, and returning back again like a beam of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order, called atheists?” (Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians, Chapter 10, found in ANF 2:133)
"In the course of time, then, the Father forsooth was born, and the Father suffered, God Himself, the Lord Almighty, whom in their preaching they declare to be Jesus Christ. We, however, as we indeed always have done (and more especially since we have been better instructed by the Paraclete, who leads men indeed into all truth), believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation, or οἰκονομία , as it is called, that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself, by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her—being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ; we believe Him to have suffered, died, and been buried, according to the Scriptures, and, after He had been raised again by the Father and taken back to heaven, to be sitting at the right hand of the Father, and that He will come to judge the quick and the dead; who sent also from heaven from the Father, according to His own promise, the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. That this rule of faith has come down to us from the beginning of the gospel, even before any of the older heretics, much more before Praxeas, a pretender of yesterday, will be apparent both from the lateness of date which marks all heresies, and also from the absolutely novel character of our new-fangled Praxeas. In this principle also we must henceforth find a presumption of equal force against all heresies whatsoever—that whatever is first is true, whereas that is spurious which is later in date. But keeping this prescriptive rule inviolate, still some opportunity must be given for reviewing (the statements of heretics), with a view to the instruction and protection of divers persons; were it only that it may not seem that each perversion of the truth is condemned without examination, and simply prejudged; especially in the case of this heresy, which supposes itself to possess the pure truth, in thinking that one cannot believe in One Only God in any other way than by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the very selfsame Person. As if in this way also one were not All, in that All are of One, by unity (that is) of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still guarded, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. How they are susceptible of number without division, will be shown as our treatise proceeds." (Tertullian, Against Praxeas, Chapter 2)
"Therefore, when the holy prophets, and all, as I have said, who righteously and justly walked in the law of the Lord, together with the entire people, celebrated a typical and shadowy Passover, the Creator and Lord of every visible and invisible creature, the only-begotten Son, and the Word co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and of the same substance with them, according to His divine nature, our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, being in the end of the world born according to the flesh of our holy and glorious lady, Mother of God, and Ever-Virgin, and, of a truth, of Mary the Mother of God; and being seen upon earth, and having true and real converse as man with men, who were of the same substance with Him, according to His human nature, Himself also, with the people, in the years before His public ministry and during His public ministry, did celebrate the legal and shadowy Passover, eating the typical lamb. For I came not to destroy the law, or the prophets, but to fulfil them,
the Saviour Himself said in the Gospel." (Pseudo-Peter of Alexandria, Fragments, http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0621.htm)
"And there is One Holy Spirit, having His subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to wit to men: Image of the Son, Perfect Image of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of the living; Holy Fount; Sanctity, the Supplier, or Leader, of Sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything superinduced, as if at some former period it was non-existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever." (Gregory Thaumaturgus, A Declaration of Faith)
From the above quotes, it is quite clear as to what the early fathers taught about the Holy Spirit, namely that He is God along with the Father and the Son. However, I also wanted to provide some material from church historians concerning this issue:
"In spite of incoherencies, however, the lineaments of a Trinitarian doctrine are clearly discernible in the Apologists. The Spirit was for them the Spirit of God; like the Word, He shared the divine nature, being (in Athenagoras's words) an 'effiuence' from the Deity. (J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pg. 103)
"The Apostolic Fathers do not call the Holy Spirit God, but most of them indicate adequately their belief in His distinct personality and divinity. For they coordinate Him with the Father and the Son in an oath and in the baptismal formula, give Him equal glory with the Father and the Son, and ascribe to Him the strictly divine function of inspiration. It is incorrect, then, to say that 'by the end of the period of the Apostolic Fathers there was no belief in a pre-existent Trinity.'....On several occasions Justin coordinates the three persons, sometimes citing formulas derived from baptism and the eucharist, sometimes echoing official catechetical teaching. He worshipped the Father as supreme in the universe; he worshipped the Logos or Son as divine but in the second place; he worshipped the Holy Spirit in the third place." (Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity, pgs. 44, 47, source)
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