Reaper, I took the opposite path. I was taught the Trinity from day one and accepted what I was taught until I started debating Catholics. I don't know exactly why this lead me to pray for wisdom and understanding of God's word but the end result was I learned that the ECF's were heavily influenced by Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers. In my research to show Catholics why Mary is not the mother of God I studied how Greeks understood "logos". To my surprise I discovered how the OT views "wisdom" is almost an exact parallel to the Greek concept of "logos".
Have you read any of Philo of Alexandria's philosophy? He was a Hellenistic Jew who used Plato's "logos" to explain Judaism's monotheism.
I. Categorization of Philo's Logos
1) The Logos as Plato's or a Middle Platonic model: It is described as a 'divine model' (PARADEIGMA), 'divine plan,' or 'thought' which is placed in God's mind (YUXH (e.g. Op Mund 24, 25; Plant 18-19; Fug 94-102). The parallel correspondences between Timaeus and Philo are as follows: 'model or plan for God's creation' (NOHTOS ZWN) (Tim 30c-31a) // 'God's ideas or model' (KOSMOS NOHTOS) (e.g. Op Mund 24); 'cosmic soul' (YUXH) (Tim 36-37) // 'God's mind' (YUXH) (Op Mund 18, 20); 'the logos as God's thought' (LOGOS KAI DIANOIA) (Tim 38c) // 'the logos' (Leg All 1:24); and 'the reason as God's plan' (LOGISMOS QEOU) (Tim 34a) // 'the reason as the laws' (LOGISMOS) (Op Mund 24).
2) The Logos as the word of YHWH (and wisdom of God): In the context where Philo goes back to the Bible, it shows the figure of God's utterance in accordance with the Jewish creation account in Genesis (e.g. Sacr 8; Fug 95) and the figure of the word of YHWH (Leg All 3:204; Post 102). The wisdom motif as 'divine thought' may correspond to Philo's Logos as 'divine plan' (cf. Quis Rer 199; Leg All 1:43, 65; Leg All 2:86; Fug 97; Somn 2:241-242); and since Philo's theological model of the divine Logos can involve the notion of 'wisdom' (of the Second Temple Period), Philo does not need to employ the wisdom motif for his theological argument.
3) The Logos as the allegorical application to the mediatorial figures in the biblical context: Philo takes several appropriate texts in the books of Moses, and places the Logos in each context. He is interested in the angelic figure (Leg All 3:177-178; Fug 5-6; Quaest Exod 2:13) or other mediator figures, such as Aaron (Heres 205), 'manna' (Leg All 3:174-178; Det 118; Heres 79, 191), or 'water' (Post 127-129; Somn 2:241-242, 246]). Philo also takes up other texts which sound polytheistic (e.g. the LXX rendering of Gen 31:13 and 9:6) and contends that the divine Logos should be placed beside God instead of other autonomous substances, so that the monotheistic view is not reduced at all (Somn 1:227-230; Quaest Gen 2:62).
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_sd/med_logos.html
Now since Philo died about 50 A.D. and John was writing to Greeks and combating Gnosticism, his use of "logos" would have been perfectly clear to the Greeks as God's wisdom becoming flesh in the man Jesus Christ. Gnostics refused to see this and to them "logos" is Sophia (Greek for wisdom is sofia). The ECF's solution to combating Gnosticism was to develop the doctrine of the Trinity.
The next problem I saw with the Trinity is the number of times the NT refers to the Lord as a "man", not as God as well as the number of times the apostles refer to the "God and Father" of the Lord So I embarked on a study of the OT prophecies concering the Messiah (a study, which is not finished).
Genesis 1:26 is used as an OT proof text for God being a compound unity of 3. So I decided to research how an Orthodox Jew understands this verse:
No area of Jewish literature could be more inhospitable to the Christian doctrine of the triune godhead than the Torah and the writings of its prophetic messengers. It is on the strength of these sacred texts that the Jew has preserved the concept of one, single, unique Creator God Who alone is worthy of worship. Understandably, missionaries undertake a formidable task when they seek to “prove” the doctrine of the Trinity from the Jewish scriptures. No prophet went silent on the uncompromising radical monotheism demanded by the God of Israel. The Jewish people, therefore, to whom these sublime declarations about the nature of the Almighty were given, knew nothing about a trinity of persons in the godhead.
http://www.outreachjudaism.org/genesis1-26.html
What suprises me is the anti-Jewish sentiment found among Christians who refuse to accept how Judiasm expalins this verse. The Jews rejected their own Messiah because God partially hardened their hearts (Romans 11:25-26, Hosea 1:10) and so that the OT prophecies could be fulfilled, prophecies that concern a man not a God/man.
John 10:10, my response to Reaper is my response to John 1:1-15.