Here. It’s an excellent, substantial discussion, posted in December 2014. If you don’t know who Dr. Rea is, he’s a leading Christian philosopher, specializing in metaphysics, and co-coiner of the useful term “analytic theology.”
Here’s a rough guide to the interview, in case you want to skip around, or review after the fact, with a few sparse comments in italics.
- 1-12:20 Randal reads quotes about how difficult a subject the Trinity is. Dr. Rea admits that it is apparently contradictory, and makes the point that if you have good reasons to believe something, you don’t reasonably abandon it upon first discovering an apparent contradiction.
- Quite true. But can a Christian get to a point where it’s no longer reasonable? Anomalies eventually force one to either suspend judgement, find a way around, or re-evaluate the evidence.
- 12:15 – 15:43 Augustinian psychological analogies. Bad.
- 15:43 – 19:29 split brain experiment analogies as discussed by Trenton Merricks, and “consubstantial.”
- 19:30 – 27:06 Cerberus (the mythical three-headed dog) and other part-whole analogies.
- Dr. Rea says some surprising and interesting things here.
- And he lodges some strong objections to the Trinity theory of William Lane Craig.
27:07 – 32:57 Dr. Rea expounds his own view. This is where our friend Gumby comes into it. 🙂 Gumby and his clay are not the same thing, but are the same material object. (He’s applying his views on the metaphysics of constitution and material objects here.) Similarly, we count hand and fist as one material object (but two things) – the hand constitutes the fist. Though God is not a material object, he contains something like matter (his divine nature) and form (the defining properties of the Persons) – so we’ll count one God, and three Persons – one divine nature formed in three different ways. Each Person is constituted by the one nature.
- It’s not clear to me, still, whether he means it to be a rational reinterpretation, or merely one of many half-decent analogies.
- 32:58:Dr. Rauser asks: but is this monotheism? If the whole Greek pantheon is divine, that’s not monotheism, right? Dr. Rea – no, it wouldn’t be. But that nature would be divided – in the Trinity, the divine nature (the “Godhead”) is undivided in space and time (or space-time).
- 34:25 Dr. Rauser: But isn’t there a division in the Incarnation? Dr. Rea: no. What if there were multiple incarnations? Hard to say… is that even possible? What about the “Trinitophany” in Genesis 18? No incarnation there, much less three of them. Maybe it’ be analogous to human time travel.
If you want to think through Dr. Rea’s Trinity theory, here are some materials to work with:
- here’s his original co-authored paper, “Material Constitution and the Trinity” (under Research, 2005). See also “Understanding the Trinity” there.
- here’s a summary by me.
- And here’s my own critical evaluation.
- On belief in apparent contradictions, see this introduction and this critical evaluation of Dr. James Anderson’s developed mysterianism.
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i personally think modalism is the perfect trinitarian model. In the O.T. God is revealed as I and not majoritively as we/us but some maybe 4times? God I s revealed mostly as I and my and being one person but simultaneously 3 divine persons that though distinct in mind, will and emotions it is the three that makes the one.
Rivers
I believe that the CTA is quite good on at least two accounts: with all its limitations, it is an appropriate model of ONE being comprising THREE persons. As for the father-son relationship, for humans (or animals in general), it involves intrinsically “before” and “after”, so, of course, nothing in space-time could ever model the “eternal generation of the son”. Perhaps you are less aware of the historical fact that John Calvin consistently minimized ALL “asymmetries” between the “persons” of the “trinity” (“unbegottenness”, “begottenness”, “spiration”), to the point that, when requested by a joint synod of Swiss churches who examined him (having been accused by Pastor Pierre Caroli) to subscribe to the Nicene Creed, he simply refused.
As for the father-son relationship between God and Jesus, I know that you reject the notion of “incarnation” (with or without “pre-existence”), so, I am not even quite sure in which sense you understand Jesus’ Sonship.
As for “persons” of the “trinity” “be[ing] in different places or forms at the same time”, obviously, for those who take the “trinity” seriously (well …), being omni-everything, the “persons” obviously do not have the time-space limitations (and others …) of conjoined triplets.
Mario,
Good comments 🙂
I think the CTA analogy breaks down in several points anyway. For example, conjoined triplets could not consist of a “father” and a “son.” Thus, it would make no sense of how Jesus himself most often described his relationship to God.
Another problem would be that conjoined triplets could not be in different places or forms at the same time. Thus, it would make no sense of the many passages where God, Jesus, and/or holy spirit seem to be located in different places at the same time (e.g. Matthew 3:16-17).
Mike Rea is sorely wrong in treating Moreland and Craig’s “Cerberus Analogy” (CA – for people easily disturbed by the analogy, “Conjoined Triplets Analogy” – CTA) as a variant of “Social Trinitarianism”. This is particularly funny because it is affirmed by an advocate of “Constitution Trinitarianism” (CT). Unfortunately for Moreland and Craig, the only thing wrong with their CA (or CTA) is that it is too transparent, and leaves no room of ambiguity and/or “mystery”. Many people would obviously consider Cerberus a monster, nay and infernal monster. I am afraid that many people (in spite of PC) would also feel uneasy about conjoined triplets. So, you see, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the real reason why most people would feel VERY uneasy about Moreland and Craig’s CA (or CTA) is because it would suggest that the only way for the “trinity” to subsist is to be a … monster … (yikes!)
Rea says that the core of the doctrine of the “trinity” is something like this:
T: “the father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, and yet there are not 3 gods but 1 God”
(which, BTW, is the core of the “Athanasian Creed”, which Eastern Christianity does not even recognize)
Nowhere in the Bible do we find anything even remotely similar to T. So what is the origin of T? Obviously NOT Scriptural. So, why should we bother at all with T?
Who cares if, maybe “buying into RI” we can make some logical sense of T? There are plenty of statements that are not self-contradictory, yet we do not affirm them because we do NOT have (sufficient) ground to affirm them.
The “trinity” is NOT a logical problem (this is just a scam to keep philosophers, especially of the analytical kind, busy). The “trinity” IS a Scriptural, historical, doctrinal problem. Period.
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