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.
Technorati Tags: modalism, trinity, Sabellianism, Christianity, spirituality, theology, Jesus, Mary
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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.
[...] 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. [...]
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….
Dale,
Taking one of your readers suggestions to heart, I’m commenting on a much discussed subject that you covered in detail within a number of your blogs, Modalism. After reading the definition and descriptions of several modalistic theories I’ve come to the conclusion that the fourth Lateran council described the trinity in modalistic terms. Here is the section I found on Fordham University’s website “Medieval Sourcebook” at
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.html
“But we, with the approval of the holy and general council, believe and confess with Peter (Lombard) that there is one supreme entity, incomprehensible and ineffable, which is truly Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, together (simul) three persons and each one of them singly. And thus in God there is only trinity, not quaternity, because each of the three persons is that entity, namely, substance, essense, or divine nature, which alone is the principle of the universe and besides which there is no other.” (emphasis added)
I don’t know latin so I am relying for the correct meaning on the English translation. The English rendering appears to indicate the IS of identity, not of predication. This correlates each singly as the divine nature. Since the “is” of Identity is reflexive F = DN, DN = F S=DN, DN = S, H = DN, DN =H. This appears to me to indicate that each of the three ‘persons’ is a mode of the essence, in other words, it is not 3 entities IN a Divine Nature, it is the Divine nature AS three entities. The only difference between this Catholic Modalism versus Sabellian Modalism would be that CM would be coincident, yet SM was sequential.
Shedd, within his extremely detailed systematic theology article on “trinity in unity” made a similar description and claim, stating unequivocally that each of the persons were modes of the essence, even defending this term against SM. One difference between Shedd and the Lateran Council description is that he claimed that each of the persons was ALL of the Divine nature, which is pretty hard to swallow if he’s speaking simulataneously since he also upholds that the persons are distinct from each other.
Getting back to the Lateran council description, are my logical conclusions reasonable or tweeked?
Hi reality checker,
Yes – I’ve wondered that myself, whether or not Lateran IV of 1215 is blatantly modalist.
Based on conversations I’ve had here, I can see how they might think f, s, and h to be distinct, and yet each shares d, the simple divine nature. You think of them as modes, in the sense of ways that d is, which include more than d – the modes are like facts or events. So the f-mode would be d + something. And s-mode would be d + something else. Etc. But each would just “be” d – not identical to d, but rather, a think in which d is the only… component? Of course, then, you worry about those distinguishing somethings…
You’re certainly right – if each one = d, then each of the three just is each of the others as well. And this, of course, is wrong, if ever something’s true of one that isn’t true of the other.
Scott or JT may want to weigh in on this. Gents – how do you read Lateran IV on the Trinity?
Actually, because modern modalists see the Son as the unique existence of a unitarian God in the form of inseparable union of deity and humanity they have no problem any of the issues you brought up. Perhaps these claims would be true of primitive modalists. I’d like to invite you to my site. There you may find the articles and debates useful.
“modern modalists see the Son as the unique existence of a unitarian God in the form of inseparable union of deity and humanity they have no problem”
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the comment. I take it, you’re a Oneness Pentecostal? Or, just a modalist?
If Jesus is “the existence of” God, that just means, does it, not, that Jesus just is God himself? If not, what does it mean, in your view.
No, I am by no means a modalist. I am a resolved Trinitarian who has a bit of know how when it comes to modern modalists. Please visit Grassrootsapologetics.org and feel free to examine some of the articles and debates present.
While the Son is indeed God in the Oneness mind, He is purely the manifestation of the divine monad existing in spirit/flesh union. Thus this unique existence renders the Son capable of subject object relationship… Or so they say.
Hello,
My fiancee linked me to this blog today, and I am compelled to write about it here.
You’re interpretation of modalism is wrong. Well, not completely wrong, as there are some modalists that believe the way you describe it, but there are some that do not, just like in trinitarianism, there are are some who believe in subordination, and others who do not.
On your first point, you are actually placing yourself in a heretical position. The Bible clearly states in multiple places that Christians believe in one God, not two or three (Deuteronomy 6:4, 2 Samuel 7:22, Nehemiah 9:6, Isaiah 43:10-11, Mark 12:29-34, Romans 3:30, 1 Timothy 2:5). If Jesus is a separate entity from God the Father, then you would at least be a binitarian, or a bitheist, depending on how far you separate the Father from the Son.
We learn through the last verse I gave, 1 Timothy 2:5, that Jesus had a human component, however that looks. We also read in a few passages that Jesus was also God (Isaiah 9:6, Matthew 1:23, John 1:1-18), manifest in flesh. So, from here we have a few options. We could say that Jesus was just a very good man, or that Jesus was a perfect human mediator between humanity and God, or Jesus was fully God, or, we could have a fuller understanding of mystery and say that Jesus was the fullness of God dwelling in a man.
Of course, I would have to go with the last option, and I’d hope you would, too.
Now, how does that work into Jesus being the Son of God? Well, God is spirit, not flesh, and as the Bible says, spirit reproduces spirit, and flesh, flesh (John 3:5-6). So, is Jesus the flesh-Son of God? No, Jesus is the spiritual Son of God, which does not negate Jesus’ role as being absolutely one with the Father. In fact, we could say that Jesus’ Spirit was in fact the fullness of God the Father! Now, you could disagree, but I don’t think you could disprove that with scripture, so it’s up to you on your interpretation.
This same logic defeats your second point. Jesus’ Spirit was a “mode” of God, if that’s how you want to put it. But the flesh was just that, flesh, a man, who was obedient to the Spirit’s will unto death.
Within the constructs of my pre-supposed dual-nature of Jesus Christ, His flesh-man can certainly mediate between the Holiness of God, and the sinfulness of man.
Again, this logic also allows us to be imitators of Christ within reason. In fact, your logic for being able to emulate Jesus, in either regards to His perfect humanity, or His absolute Holiness as God, we will always fall short, because we have not been perfected yet (unless I missed something and the resurrection already happened). However, we are children of the Most High God, and no longer carry the title of sinner (although we may still fall into sin)!
Honestly, I don’t fall into the main category as a modalist, but more-so the category of Oneness theology, which is a subset of Monarchical Modalism.
Anyway, that’s my two cents, I hope you enjoy the read.
-Alex
Alex
I’m surprised that you chose such ‘weak’ verses to ‘show’ that Jesus is God!
Isaiah 9v6 does not refer to Christ- it describes King Hesekiah.
Scholarly modern bibles – such as NAB cast considerable ‘light’ on the subject.
The verse was written in the PRESENT tense
The text does not say “he is’ it says ‘they name him.’
Christ was never called’ Everlasting Father’
The text does not refer to “God’ – it says something like “wonderful in counsel is our God Warrior’
Evangelical web-sites perform the usual contortions and gymnastics to ‘get out’ of this one – including challenging the Hebrews interpretation of their own scriptures. What a shame!
Matthew 1,v23
Again an allegedly prophetic verse which refers to contemporaty events. The truth is out there – mixed up with the persistent objections of the evangelicals. You just have to read the full chapter to see this was not Christ being referred to. I won’t labour the point but where was Christ ever called “Emmanuel”?
John Chapter 1 is completely analagous to Genesis 1.
Notice that 9 verses of Genesis 1 begin with the words “God said” – it was by his WORD that God created the heavens and the earth. No much wonder that the word was with God – it was HIS word!! Simple!
John 1 v 18 envisaged that some people might misinterpret verses 1 -17 and clarifies the situation “‘no man has ever seen God”
John Chapter 17 vv1-4 shows quite clearly that Christ’s Father is the only true God.
Note – 2 persons in this diagogue!
And finally John summarises Christs mission by stating (Chapter 20 v 31) “Now these are written that ye may come to know that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.”
I am a relative newcomer to these blogs – but almost every Trinitarian theory I encounter strikes me either as a form of modalism- or disguised tritheism.
Blessings
John