I’ve been harping on modalism about the Son for a while now, and I’ve even given what I think is a convincing argument against it. Still, what if it is false? Why do I care? Why do I think it matters?
Remember, the claim is that the Son just is God, or else is a mode of God, a way God is. I think that S modalism has a couple of very unacceptable consequences. First, the theoretical ones. If S modalism is true, then:
1. The New Testament writers are either incompetent metaphor users, or they’re just mistaken about Jesus and God. Jesus is described in the NT as a “priest” and as the “Son of God”. Those metaphors would simply be inappropriate if Jesus is numerically identical to God, or is a mode of God. Again, the Son is supposed to me a “mediator” between God and the rest us. But if he just is God, that’s to say that there doesn’t need to be a mediator. Or if a mode of God is the “mediator”, again, there’s no need for one. The idea there would just be that God has a friendly, approachable side. So if S modalism is true, the NT writers who use that metaphor as either ill-informed, or are incompetent metaphor users. I resist both conclusions. Why? Because the NT writers were all, directly or indirectly, taught by Jesus, and I hold that Jesus was a competent teacher.
2. If Jesus is a mode of God, then he is not a human. Every human is a substance/entity, and no substance is a mode of any other substance, so no mode of anything is a human. And if Jesus is numerically identical to God, we combine that with the truth that God isn’t (identical to any) human being. Ergo, if S modalism is true, Jesus isn’t a human being. The three-dollar name for this is docetism, the idea that Jesus only seemed human. I take it that this is inconsistent with the New Testament, as well as with other things that most Christians want to say about Jesus. Yes, I know – “two natures” and so on. I going to pass that by for the moment; in the future we’ll chew on that at some length.
For now let me pass on the practical consequences of S modalism:
3. Jesus can’t be a mediator between God and us, but we do need such a mediator – the holiness and glory of God demand it. How about Mary? Or maybe, a priest? Maybe a patron saint? So much for the Pauline vision of Christians accessing God through Christ, a kingdom filled with “priests” with no need of other, merely human intermediaries. I suggest that S modalism was a big factor in the development of the cult of Mary, the manifold forms of saint-worship (honoring – whatever), and the strongly bishop- and later priest- oriented direction that proto-Catholocism took in the early middle ages. (Conversely, if you believe that Jesus is your “advocate” with the Father, then all these other suggested intermediaries are superfluous. But this requires S modalism to be false.)
4. Again, if Jesus just is God, or is a mode of God, hence, Jesus can’t realistically be a model for us to imitate. We’re humans, and we need a genuinely human example to imitate. We’d better find someone else… How about, I don’t know, this guy?
Well, I’m off to preach to the birds now… 
But first, how do you know if someone is a S modalist? In a church context, the main way is this – they throw around the terms “Father”, “God”, “Jesus” with no discernible rhyme or reason. They may start a prayer with “Father”, address the object of prayer two sentences later as “Jesus”, then end with “in your [Jesus'? The Father's?] name…” If those three terms refer to one and the same thing, then there’s no point in being picky about how they’re used.
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Comments 2
All of your points (1-4, and you’re “How” answer – prayer style) I related to every day trinitarians. Also is Jesus is “fully God” as the creeds declare – all your points against modalism are true against orthodox Christianity – against the creeds themselves.
You’re convicting yourself of your own trinitarianism. Jesus cannot be God without all this baggage and contradictory propositions.
Posted 14 Aug 2006 at 2:43 pm ¶Dale,
What needs working out is a theory of the Incarnation in addition to a theory about the Trinity. The Incarnation is a very tricky thing to explain metaphysically. You may like to look at Richard Cross’s book _Metaphysics of the Incarnation: From Aquinas to Scotus_. That might be fodder for discussion.
To say ‘Jesus’ cosignifies two natures, human nature and a divine nature according to Athanasius and many many others (i.e. Def. of Chalcedon). That is a starting point for a much longer conversation….
Posted 07 Nov 2007 at 5:08 pm ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 2
[...] Wow. That’s straight up modalism, presumably noumenal, concurrent FSH modalism. To be most specific, each divine “person” is identified with a (timeless?) event, with God’s having a certain property – being a real thing (Father), being articulate (Son), and being alive (Spirit). The classic Muslim objection to trinitarianism is that it is simply a kind of polytheism. Note how neatly this move beats that objection! There’s only one God, only one divine Person here, who has three properties. This “victory” comes, though, at a heavy price. A couple of comments. First, I haven’t traced this modalistic move to its earliest known source in Christian-Muslim interaction, but I strongly suspect that it didn’t start with Paul of Antioch. I believe it may go back as early as some time in the 800s. Maybe I’ll post on that when I find it. Could it be that for hundreds of years, this is the best that many Christian apologists could come up with? I’m assuming that this was how they really understood the doctrine, and was not merely a convenient, temporary “spin” on it, adopted for polemical purposes. (Could be wrong, but this seems the safest course in the absence of contrary information.) Second, to my knowledge, this spin on the Trinity doctrine was never decried as heresy, in either Western or Eastern Christianity. Actually, it seems very close to, though genuinely different than, mainstream thinking. Surely, Augustine’s many analogies in his On the Trinity had some influence here. Third, Christians still jump to, or expose their allegiance to, various forms of modalism when interacting with Muslims. My next post will be on a contemporary example of this. [...]
[...] If this is right, then in my view, there are still plenty of reasons to reject it. Presumably, on this theory both Father and Son are events. And arguably, events can’t be in loving relationship with one another – only persons (personal substances/entities/individuals) can – and persons are not reducible to events. In general, theological incoherence looms at every turn, once we accept any kind of S-modalism. Further, if being “divine” means being identical to a god, to a kind of individual, then in that sense he’s denying that either Father or Son is divine. [...]
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