I used to call these sorts Trinity theories of “modalism.” I still think that is not a bad description, so long as you specify that it is not by definition heretical or wrong.
But I now think “one-self” is a more neutral term, which even better describes the sort of theory.
The reasoning goes like this.
The Christian God must, after all is said and done, be Continue reading »
Consider this recent affair; to the relief of many evangelicals, this prominent leader has turned from the brink of damnable heresy. That is, he’s turned from Oneness Pentecostal theology (which is, in my experience, as clear as mud) to “Orthodoxy.” Christianity Today trumpets: “T.D. Jakes Embraces Doctrine of the Trinity, Moves Away from ‘Oneness’ View“.
“I began to realize that there are some things that could be said about the Father that could not be said about the Son,” Jakes said. “There are distinctives between the working of the Holy Spirit and the moving of the Holy Spirit, and the working of the redemptive work of Christ. I’m very comfortable with that.”
This is the indiscernibility of identicals (also here) in action. This is a valid inference : x and y have differed, so x and y are not numerically identical. So in his view, the Father is not the Son.
So far so good. But what sorts of things does he think the Father and Son are?
It seems: “manifestations.” Of what? God. So they are two manifestations of God.
So of course he asserts that he (the new trinitarian) and the Oneness folk “are saying the same thing.”
At this event Pastor Marc Driscoll grilled Jakes on catholic formulas, and Jakes said yes to them all, only qualifying – like a number of catholic theologians – that he doesn’t much like the term “person.” So as far as Driscoll and many viewers are concerned, he’s “orthodox.”
But Jakes’ misreading of 1 Tim 3:16 is revealing – he thinks that the one God – conceived as a self (I’m interpreting here) manifested in the life of Jesus – so that the self operative there in that life is simply God. “Jesus” is the mode of God’s manifesting in this way, including, presumably, a real human being. Of course, Jesus, aka the Son isn’t the Father; they are two different modes of God, ways God is. (He says “manifests” but since he agrees that the Trinity is eternal, he must have in mind something intrinsic to God rather than a relation to creatures.)
Just as Jakes has said before:
I believe in one God who is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I believe these three have distinct and separate functions — so separate each has individual attributes, yet are one. I do not believe in three Gods. …Though no human illustration perfectly fits the Divine, it is similar to ice, water and steam: three separate forms, yet all H20. Each element can co-exist, each has distinguishing characteristics and functions, but all have sameness…. (link and emphasis added)
For Jakes, God just is a certain great self, who eternally lives in three ways. It seems he is a noumenal, eternally concurrent FSH modalist.
But my point is not to throw rocks at Jakes. Rather, my point is Continue reading »
In this last post in this series, I want to put out a few critical reactions to Baber’s “Neo-Sabellian” Trinity theory.
My thanks to Harriet for this piece and for her interaction with us here.
No doubt, she’ll argue back; and she will probably say something about how her views have changed since she wrote this piece.
So, in no particular order:
Time for the old Spanish Inquisition. Will she survive The (self-administered) Rack?
In the final part of her article “Sabellianism Reconsidered”, Baber turns to theological objections. To wit:
Her answers? Jesus, like his contemporaries, was not a trinitarian. That is, he didn’t realize that the God to whom he prayed had temporal parts which were gods. Or even if he did, he didn’t intend to teach any trinitarian doctrine. Thus, he addressed not the Father, but God, as “Father”. (p. 10) Thus the term “Father”, in Jesus’ context, referred to God, while nowadays (post 380 CE?) it refers to the Father, the (temporally) first Person of the Trinity.
In response to the second objection, she notes that “a notion of timeless, metaphysically necessary causation Continue reading »
Switchfoot “are one”. But they are really just five dudes, not one.
Baber observes,
Typically, aggregates of Fs are not themselves Fs. A collection of cats is not itself a cat… an aggregation of persons is not a person. (p. 7, emphasis added)
Still, she thinks this needn’t preclude three gods from themselves being a god. Some sorts of things, it seems, can have other things of that same sort for parts, such as a Sierpinski Triangle. (p. 10) Maybe, then, gods are more like triangles like cats, in that groups of god can be (temporal) parts of a god. At least, we can’t rule out that this is possible.
How many temporal parts does God, on this theory have? There’s no reason to think it is exactly three. Continue reading »
To be omnipotent, Baber says, “is to be able to do [directly, by fiat] any action… including actions at times other than” the time at which one is omnipotent. (p.6)But, if I follow her compressed reasoning here (p.7), the reasoning just given is mistaken. God is, at any time, able to bring about anything at that time. He’s able to do this because of his temporal part (e.g. the Father) which exists at any given time. (Or if we’re talking about stretches of time, it could be 2-3 parts.) But each God-temporal-part is also omnipotent, in that for all its career, it can do any action, at the earlier or later gods which count as the same god as it, have the same sort of power during their careers. So, take the Son. He’s omnipotent, because (1) during his life he can do any action, (2) at times later than his life, the Holy Spirit can do any action, and the Holy Spirit counts as the continuing existence of the Son, and for parallel reasons, (3) before the Son’s life, he ought to be thought of as pre-existing as the Father, who during all of his career, could do any action. “The Persons, therefore, are as omnipotent… as [God] is.” (p.9) Thus, she holds, her third condition is satisfied – each of the Persons is wholly divine.
Next time: But is the Trinity God?
The theory, then, is that God is an everlasting, temporally extended thing with three temporal parts, each of which is a god. But, they’re the same god as God. Yet as we saw last time, how can the Three be gods at all, as each exists at some times but not others?Without going into the arguments for this controversial thesis, Baber appeals to the claim made by Derek Parfit and others, that “identity is not ‘what matters’ for survival”. (p.6) Thus, a future thing can count as my surviving, though it is not (numerically) identical to me.
Suppose (I’m stealing this thought experiment from Richard Swinburne) some mad scientists, such as Pinkie and the Brain, are going to cut my brain in half, and put the left half in one body, and the right in another. The body which gets the left half will be tortured to death, while the body getting the right half will be given lifetime passes to all NFL games and a lifetime supply of good beer. If I’m to undergo this experiment, I want to know which of these resulting people will be (numerically identical to) me: the unlucky one, the lucky one, or neither.
Baber (following Parfit) wants to say that depending on how exactly the resulting people are related to me, both may count as the continuation of or survival of me. Specifically, she suggests that psychological continuity is enough – it is enough that the later people have the same or nearly the same beliefs, desires, and so on that I have.
I don’t think this is right, but back to the Trinity: In her view, the god which is a God-stage (temporal part of God) called the Father would, just before the Incarnation, be mistaken to think Continue reading »
To continue Baber’s attempt to retool Sabellianism:
Suppose your car, named KITT, has temporal parts. KITT, then is the sum of, the whole composed of these parts. (KITT at t1, KITT at t2, KITT at t3, KITT at t4…etc.) Further, Baber urges each of these car-stages (temporal parts of a car) is itself a car. So, e.g., KITT at t3 is just as much a car as the whole KITT. But now, suppose David Hasselhoff is driving KITT on, say, Easter. He’s actually, on this metaphysics, driving two cars, for KITT on Easter is a different car than KITT (the sum of KITT-stages).
Not to worry, argues Baber. We simply need a concept of “tensed identity”. This is not numerical identity as normally understood, but is rather the relation between KITT and KITT at Easter, such that they “count as one”. (p.5) Thus, Baber suggests that if we believe in temporal parts, the thesis of “tensed identity” is a “plausible way to avoid over-population.” (p. 5)
Back to God. She’s exploring the idea that God is a whole composed of three temporal parts Continue reading »
Following an ancient tradition of mocking modalists as “patripassians”, she seems to think the biggest or the main problem with modalism is that it identifies the Father and the Son. (pp. 1, 3) On her modalist theory, they are temporal parts (person-stages) of one being, but they are not numerically identical – they are different temporal parts of God. As she observes, on this theory, “There is… no time at while f=s.” (p. 3) Thus, her theory doesn’t identify any of the persons with one another, or with God for that matter.
Many metaphysicians, she knows, reject the theory of temporal parts, and the perdurance theory of how a thing can “last” through time.
But moving on, is this theory monotheistic? She urges,
All we need to capture the spirit of monotheism is the doctrine that at any time there is exactly one God. (3)
Huh? She draws an analogy with US Presidents; at any given time, there’s one one.
But imagine this: Continue reading »
More relevantly, I believe she’s a lifelong Episcopalian.Her starting point is this argument:
1. There is only one God.
2. The Father is God.
3. The Son is God.
4. Therefore, the Father is the Son. (p. 1) Continue reading »
<gossip>Once some years ago, I was hanging out with a group of Christian philosophers, and the subject of the Trinity came up. One person, a well known philosopher, firmly remarked that “It’s just gotta be modalism.”
I recently shared this story with a Christian philosopher friend. In response, he told me that more recently, he was hanging with a group of Christian philosophers, and one (who is at least as respected as the aforementioned – which is to say, very) opined firmly that Christians should just admit to being tritheists and defend tritheism. </gossip>
My friend and I got a big laugh out of this.
Neither philosopher, by the way, has published yet on this topic. But maybe we’re in for a bumpy ride!
The more I think about this, though, the less funny I think it is. There’s nothing new under the sun, says my darker self. And I recall the words of the dearly departed Christian philosopher William Alston,
It is a well known fact, amply borne out by the history of the discussion of the topic, that as soon as one goes beyond the automatic recital of traditional creedal phrases one inevitably leans either in the direction of modalism – the “persons” are simply the different aspects of the divine being and/or activity – or tritheism – there are really three Gods, albeit very intimately connected in some way. (“Swinburne and Christian Theology,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 41 (1997) , p. 54).
Well, if that’s so, maybe there’s a problem with those traditional creedal phrases! (For his part, Alston rested with a very unsatisfying appeal to mystery.)
I tremendously respect all three of these people – Alston and the two nameless ones – but I dare say that none of the three has fully enough explored all the options.
Given my scholarly interests in Hinduism, I had to post a link to this story about the conversion of a Reformed Christian philosopher to a form of Hinduism.
Pictured here are Krishna and his lover Radha. I take it that in Sudduth’s form of Hinduism Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu. Other Hindus consider Krishna to be the high god himself.
There is much art celebrating the love of these two.
The story for me was a bit spoiled when I watched a documentary in which a Hindu, Indian man explained that (at least on some versions) Radha is married to another, and is Krishna’s aunt. Perhaps some would object that I’m not looking at it metaphysically enough.
(Update – to be fair, some Hindu sources assert them to be unrelated and married – see comment #11 below.)
In another famous episode, Krishna charms a bunch of cow-herding ladies.
I’m curious to read more about Sudduth’s conversion. How does one get from Calvin’s all-determining triune deity to Vishnu? I wonder if it is by way of fairly mainstream trinitarian modalism…
Myself, as I read Sudduth’s interesting narrative of his conversion I’m not sure where, i.e. with what sort of Christianity, he was starting from. I too have taught the Gita in an academic setting, but I have not had experiences like this:
Around 4:20am (Friday morning) September 16th, I woke suddenly from a deep sleep to the sound of the name of “Krishna” being uttered in some way Continue reading »
First, a few clarifications. By “modalist” I do not mean “Sabellian” or “monarchian.” (Those ancient catholics probably did hold to various forms of modalism, but the term is not a historical one, and can refer to other views which probably no ancient person held.) Nor do I mean modalism by definition to be heretical relative to orthodox/catholic creeds. What I mean is that at least one of these – Father, Son, Spirit – is a mode of the one God, in some sense a way that God is. That last phrase is deliberately ambiguous.
In his recent Christmas sermon the Pope said:
In all three Christmas Masses, the liturgy quotes a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, which describes the epiphany that took place at Christmas in greater detail: “A child is born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace. Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end” (Is 9:5f.). … A child, in all its weakness, is Mighty God. A child, in all its neediness and dependence, is Eternal Father. …
God has appeared – as a child. It is in this guise that he pits himself against all violence and brings a message that is peace. (emphases and link added)
This last phrase, X has appeared as S, is ambiguous. It could mean Continue reading »
Stephen Prothero, of Boston University, is the rare professor who is to a household name and face. He’s been on all sorts of media, and is an able spokesman for the cause of religious literacy. Preach it!
His latest book, God is Not One, is possibly the best introduction to a variety of religious traditions for the general reader. It’s well-written, informative, humorous, apt at comparing religions, and I would say pretty fair. I recommend it overall. The book is worth it just for his bashing of the soft-headed pluralism that infects so many popular books on religion. (Ch.1)
Less positively, Prothero’s outlook on religion is colored in many ways by the fact that he is an ex-Christian, having been raised as a mainline church. He sports of whole range of attitudes I see as deriving from this, or from this plus our present intellectual scene. Also, it strikes me that his childhood faith he left behind was just that. In any case, he has a nice way of wearing his inclinations on his sleeve. An author should be opinionated.
Here I want to ask: Is Prothero both fair and accurate in how he presents Christian belief? He says:
…the Christianity… of my childhood… was all about the doctrine of the Incarnation, which to me was as mysterious as adult life in general. According to this core Christian teaching, at the fulcrum of world history God took on the form of a helpless baby, born of a frightened young woman and held in the rough hands of a carpenter. “What if God was one of us?” asks the Joan Osborne pop song. Christianity responds, “He was!” (p. 68)
Well, is.
Again, at one level, Continue reading »
The poll below is an interesting one. (The bogus one to the left is only fun, but not interesting.) As I write this post, it is still current, and is available for voting at the upper right of the main blog page.
Which of these is false?
One option is to vote that none are false, since all are true. As I write this, 27% have picked this option. But this is a poor pick. This “is” here is the “is” of numerical identity throughout. Given this, it is impossible that all three be true; they are demonstrably inconsistent. (The logical form is: 1. g=s, 2. g=t, 3. -(t=s).) At least one must be false.
Why then do 27% opt for inconsistency (affirming all three)? Continue reading »
Of all the ancient catholic “fathers” I’ve read, Origen (c.185-254) is the most impressive as a scholar.
It’s not that I usually agree with him – any non-Platonist is going to choke on many of the dishes he’s serving, and I think that most today would take issue for some his ways of interpreting the Bible. But he has vast knowledge, he makes pretty careful distinctions, he knows how to argue, and is just a much more developed and original thinker than most. Any contemporary who was going to square off with him either did or should have considered him a formidable opponent.
He wrote, or rather dictated, a vast amount – evidently, he did little else. Some think he may have been the most prolific person in antiquity. We still have a fair number of texts from him.
He’s historically important for many reasons, but for this post, what’s most important is that in the 3rd century he was considered a stalwart of mainstream (“catholic”, or “proto-orthodox”) Christianity.
Lately I’ve been reading Origen’s Commentary on John, as translated by Ronald E. Heine, who by way, I have found very helpful. He too is a first-rate scholar.
Evidently, passage here is directed against certain monarchians who thought (or at least, were alleged to think) that the Father = the Son, i.e. that the Son is the Father himself and vice versa. This passage struck a nerve with me, as it reminded me of conversations I’ve had.
The references in brackets are from Heine’s footnotes. Continue reading »
The most controversial word up to that date in Christian theology was the Greek homoousios, enshrined at the Nicea council called and presided over by the first Christian (?) Roman emperor, Constantine, in the year 325.
This council said that we must confess that the Son is homoousion with the Father.
What did it mean? Same ousia. Does that clear it up?
OK, here’s more: same being-or-substance-or-essence-or-nature-or-something!
Whatever it was supposed to mean the “Arians” didn’t like it, and at the time, that was good enough. It was supposed to imply that Son, like Father, was “true God”, of divine status – however, unlike the Father, from true God.
Some were concerned in the immediate aftermath that the new formula was somehow modalistic (“Sabellian”). Aside from that fact the the word was first used by a modalist in the 3rd century, you can see why. If ousia is taken to mean individual entity, then it can be read as asserting Father and Son to be numerically identical – so that anything true of one has to be true of the other. However, it’s far from clear that at the time most took it that way.
When they translated the Nicene creed into Latin, homoousion became consubstantialem. In older English translations of the Catholic missal, this was “consubstantial“. But in the post-Vatican II era, there was an urge to clean up, modernize, and clarify liturgical language. Thus, since 1970 they’ve been saying (in English language masses) “one in Being with the Father”.
Some criticize this for suggesting modalism. (Nothing new under the sun, people!) In any case, this translation is on its way out.
For some time, they’ve been fighting over how traditional liturgical language should be. For the obsessive, here’s a whole blog devoted to the missal-update.
The new version will go back to Continue reading »
Man, if I don’t love youtube. Never thought you’d here the words “modalistic monarchianism” in a rap?
Yo. Check it out this rap “Godhead” by Flame. Comes with bonus sermon excerpts.
My favorite rhyme, from verse 3: “Pentecostalism” with “cost of living”. That was a hard one! Well played. Second best: “Sabellius” with “belly is”. (Verse 2) He really should’ve worked in “Nestorianism” towards the end of verse 3, but I guess that would tax the rhyming skills of Snoop Dog himself.
The concern here is to refute “Oneness” folk. Take that, Winterband!!! Indeed – Sabellius was trippin.
After the break, the lyrics in all their glory, as posted on the youtube page, with the best bits bolded by me.
As I mentioned last time, in 1995 I decided to take my M.A. in Philosophy from Claremont and go elsewhere for my Ph.D. With the support of all my professors, and a pretty decent GRE score, I applied to twelve programs.
I remember going out for a walk one day around our neighborhood in Claremont; it was probably the dead of winter, but, you know, 55 degrees, since this was Southern California. I was praying, and I saw in someone’s front yard a sapling that had been tied of straight with a couple of stakes and cables, forcing it to grow straight. I knew that my own mind was enthusiastic but undisciplined, and I prayed that God would send me teachers to make me grow straight.
Of my twelve applications, I got into to three places, and I ended up going to Brown University for my Ph.D. I had a great time there; no complaints at all. I’ll cover my time there in two posts.
The two who most influenced me were my dissertation adviser James Van Cleve and Victor Caston.
Victor is a ridiculously smart ancient and medieval specialist, interested particularly in philosophy of mind. I served as his Teaching Assistant for his ancient philosophy class, from which I learned a ton, and I attended Greek reading groups with him. Later, he would meet to read Aquinas with me in Latin. Urbane but not over-polite, with a smile he would simply call you out on your inconsistencies. He knew all the wiles of the species Homo Academicus, Continue reading »
Is the Trinity contradictory? In reply to such a charge or query, there’s a standard opening move employed by trinitarians who have some training in logic, be they theologian, philosopher, or apologist. (I’ve seen this by all three sorts.) It goes like this:
“We’re not saying that God is exactly one A and exactly three A’s. That would be a contradiction. We’re saying that God is one A and three B’s. Where’s the contradiction?”
On the face of it, this is a good and reasonable reply to the charge that the doctrine of the Trinity includes or implies a contradiction (and so is false). In general, we must be careful with facile charges of contradiction; often, such claims are easily rebutted.
But it is only an opening move, and it is a shallow one, as I’ll explain. In fact, it leaves you as exposed as our friend with the raised leg here.
Suppose you say that right now there are ten on the field, and also exactly two on the field. By this, you mean ten players and two teams. This is consistent.
How about ten bugs and two players. No problemo.
Now suppose you say that there are now ten players on the field and exactly two human beings? That is not consistent, for each player just is a certain human being.
Thus, the sort of logical point I made at the outset of this post works sometimes, but sometimes it fails. It all depends on what the terms are, and how they are related.
But does this work or not, in the case of the Trinity?
With creedal Trinity claims, as often understood, A = divine being, and B = divine person Continue reading »