I’m glad to see that you were the one who revised your text rather than someone else at this site. And yes, I was wrong myself in asserting the Council of Trent was in the 19th century (it was Counter-Reformation; the First Vatican Council was in the 19th century.)

Thank you for responding and clearing up the matter.

-JAK

Thanks for your comments.

I wrote and re-wrote several times this post before publishing it in Portuguese. There was always something I wanted to add, or something that I wanted to express in other words. Even after I post it there were things I wanted to change. When I was asked to translate this post I could not resist making these smaller changes. Probably if the same Catholic reader would ask me today the same question I would write not one, but several posts. In fact the subject deserves a book and not a short post.

In fact I missed the Councils; I meant Nicaea and not Trent (16th century; not 19th). As for the role of Constantine, I do not know exactly where I read about his attendance and interference in the Council. But I admit you may be right about that.

“Some 400 years after the crucifixion of Christ at the Council of Trent, Constantine intervened to put to an end the long theological battle over the absolute separate nature of God versus the integrated nature of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit, later known as the dogma of the Trinity.”

First off, this paragraph is not present in the original, which starts with the sentence:

“Talvez a maior diferença teológica esteja no facto do Islão não aceitar o conceito de Deus Trinitário.”

Roughly translated:

“Another of the major theological differences is that Islam does not accept or conceive of the Triune God.” (I know Spanish, not Portuguese.)

Secondly, this excerpt from your translation is entirely incorrect: Constantine lived 300, not 400 years after the Messiah; he convened the First Council of Nicaea in 325, whereas the Council of Trent occurred in the 19th century; and this implies a level of authority for Constantine that most Christians would not accept. Even Anabaptists and Christian radicals are disinclined to say that Constantine personally formulated the doctrine of the Trinity.

On an unrelated note, let me say that the Bahá’ís I have known have always been respectful of Christianity and Islam. Bahá’ís necessarily reject those religions for themselves and have a peculiar understanding of them, but they are always gracious and never call for the kind of violence or eradication of Christians and Muslims that has been called for against them – in particular in Muslim societies.