Where do you think the Trinity comes from? Consider the theology of the earliest Fathers:
Clement
Clement represents some seeds of trinitarian thought, but can't really be called a trinitarian. Observe an oath and a question: "As God lives, and the Lord Jesus Christ lives, and the Holy Spirit;" "have we not one God, and one Christ, and one Spirit of grace poured upon us?" He sees Christ as the "instrument" through which God exercises His sovereignty - the "sceptre of majesty" - the one who spoke through the Spirit in the Psalms, and the way by which we have found salvation; but Clement never addresses the relationship of the three with each other. He tells us to think of Jesus Christ "as of God". We know the "Father of truth" through him. Clement's most telling expression concerning the relationship of the Father to the Son is this: "being first of all spirit, Christ the Lord, Who saved us, became flesh and so called us."
Barnabas
Christ's body is the "vessel of the Spirit" according to Barnabas, but Christ's preexistence is the focal point of his work. It was Christ that cooperated with God in the Creation. "Let us make man in our image" is addressed to Christ. He received His mandates from the Father before the incarnation and it was He that spoke with Moses. Of Christ' glory he says that "all things are in Him, and unto Him." No explanation of their unique relationship.
Ignatius
Here we see a little more Trinitarianism. Ignatius declares that "there is one God, Who has revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, Who is His Word emerging from silence." According to Ignatius, Christ is the Father's "thought" (gnoma, gnwmh)
and God incarnate. The problem lies in his idea that the divine Sonship begins with the incarnation. It's a hard statement to reconcile with his other ideas of the independence of the Son prior to His birth, but it can probably be attributed to his wanting to avoid all appearance of polytheism. While it can hardly be said that Ignatius teaches the Son began to exist separate from the Father, the only hint we have as to the nature of the Father/Son relationship in the divine Spirit is that Christ was the Father's "thought." No clear indication of Trinitarian teaching, but a clear determination not to compromise his monotheism.
Hermas
Hermas is a different story altogether. Hermas never even mentions the name of Jesus and when he refers to the Son of God it is the SPirit that he refers to, assigning the position of "servant" to Christ. He gets promoted to "partner" with the Holy Spirit as a result of His cooperative nature. The preexistent Son of God is later identified by Hermas with the Spirit in a Similitude, describing the Church as a tower. The Spirit is He who accompanied the Father in the Creation, and is now revealed to us. Before the incarnation, apparently, the only players are God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Michael is the one apparently embodying the premortal Messiah.
Justin
According to the Martyr, reason is what united men to God and gave them knowledge of Him. According to Justin, Pagans that lived "with reason" were, in a sense, Christian before Christianity. "Before all creatures God begat, in the beginning, a rational power out of himself." This reason is a gift of God, and with the birth of Christ this reason was manifested incarnate. Justin compares Him to the light of the sun, completely independent, but completely inseparable. He and Tatian argued that the Son was like a fire kindled from another, involving a "distibution, but no severance."
Theopilus
Theophilus felt much the same way, but here the babbling starts to lose meaning. "God having His Word immanent in His bowels, engendered Him along with His Wisdom, emitting Him before the universe. He is not the Son in the sense in which poets and romancers relate the birth of of sons to gods, but rather in the sense in which the truthspeaks of the Word as eternally immanent in God's bosom."
All of these teachings share common chords that don't agree with post-Nicene theology. They only distinguish the Son from the Father when He is created as an assistant for creation, and they greatly subordinated the Son to the Father. Justin calls him a "second God in a secondary rank." This is seen (by some) not so much as a subordination, but as a protection of the monotheistic views that must be safeguarded above all else.
In later years, with Iranaeus and others, the definitions were honed and polished until they could stand up to the neo-Platonic scrutiny that would shape the church through Augustine and Aquinas and on.
To me these men took upon themselves the task of defining for the philosophical world a God that would fit inside the parameters they themselves had established. To simplify it, they were all given criteria (i.e. montheism, the scriptures, natural law) and told to create a God that can fit inside all of it and still fill all creation. I don't see any revelation or authority in the process. I see men trying to think of a way to make it all work. I'll continue later with the arguments of the 3rd and 4th centuries, when the bickering got really bad.
Clement
Clement represents some seeds of trinitarian thought, but can't really be called a trinitarian. Observe an oath and a question: "As God lives, and the Lord Jesus Christ lives, and the Holy Spirit;" "have we not one God, and one Christ, and one Spirit of grace poured upon us?" He sees Christ as the "instrument" through which God exercises His sovereignty - the "sceptre of majesty" - the one who spoke through the Spirit in the Psalms, and the way by which we have found salvation; but Clement never addresses the relationship of the three with each other. He tells us to think of Jesus Christ "as of God". We know the "Father of truth" through him. Clement's most telling expression concerning the relationship of the Father to the Son is this: "being first of all spirit, Christ the Lord, Who saved us, became flesh and so called us."
Barnabas
Christ's body is the "vessel of the Spirit" according to Barnabas, but Christ's preexistence is the focal point of his work. It was Christ that cooperated with God in the Creation. "Let us make man in our image" is addressed to Christ. He received His mandates from the Father before the incarnation and it was He that spoke with Moses. Of Christ' glory he says that "all things are in Him, and unto Him." No explanation of their unique relationship.
Ignatius
Here we see a little more Trinitarianism. Ignatius declares that "there is one God, Who has revealed Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, Who is His Word emerging from silence." According to Ignatius, Christ is the Father's "thought" (gnoma, gnwmh)
and God incarnate. The problem lies in his idea that the divine Sonship begins with the incarnation. It's a hard statement to reconcile with his other ideas of the independence of the Son prior to His birth, but it can probably be attributed to his wanting to avoid all appearance of polytheism. While it can hardly be said that Ignatius teaches the Son began to exist separate from the Father, the only hint we have as to the nature of the Father/Son relationship in the divine Spirit is that Christ was the Father's "thought." No clear indication of Trinitarian teaching, but a clear determination not to compromise his monotheism.
Hermas
Hermas is a different story altogether. Hermas never even mentions the name of Jesus and when he refers to the Son of God it is the SPirit that he refers to, assigning the position of "servant" to Christ. He gets promoted to "partner" with the Holy Spirit as a result of His cooperative nature. The preexistent Son of God is later identified by Hermas with the Spirit in a Similitude, describing the Church as a tower. The Spirit is He who accompanied the Father in the Creation, and is now revealed to us. Before the incarnation, apparently, the only players are God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Michael is the one apparently embodying the premortal Messiah.
Justin
According to the Martyr, reason is what united men to God and gave them knowledge of Him. According to Justin, Pagans that lived "with reason" were, in a sense, Christian before Christianity. "Before all creatures God begat, in the beginning, a rational power out of himself." This reason is a gift of God, and with the birth of Christ this reason was manifested incarnate. Justin compares Him to the light of the sun, completely independent, but completely inseparable. He and Tatian argued that the Son was like a fire kindled from another, involving a "distibution, but no severance."
Theopilus
Theophilus felt much the same way, but here the babbling starts to lose meaning. "God having His Word immanent in His bowels, engendered Him along with His Wisdom, emitting Him before the universe. He is not the Son in the sense in which poets and romancers relate the birth of of sons to gods, but rather in the sense in which the truthspeaks of the Word as eternally immanent in God's bosom."
All of these teachings share common chords that don't agree with post-Nicene theology. They only distinguish the Son from the Father when He is created as an assistant for creation, and they greatly subordinated the Son to the Father. Justin calls him a "second God in a secondary rank." This is seen (by some) not so much as a subordination, but as a protection of the monotheistic views that must be safeguarded above all else.
In later years, with Iranaeus and others, the definitions were honed and polished until they could stand up to the neo-Platonic scrutiny that would shape the church through Augustine and Aquinas and on.
To me these men took upon themselves the task of defining for the philosophical world a God that would fit inside the parameters they themselves had established. To simplify it, they were all given criteria (i.e. montheism, the scriptures, natural law) and told to create a God that can fit inside all of it and still fill all creation. I don't see any revelation or authority in the process. I see men trying to think of a way to make it all work. I'll continue later with the arguments of the 3rd and 4th centuries, when the bickering got really bad.