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“the” Trinity doctrine – Part 1

nutsThe traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity is commonly expressed as the claim that the one God “exists as” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or as the claim that there are three divine persons “in” God, or as the claim that God “exists in three Persons”.

I have to say: this drives me nuts. The “exists as” formula strongly suggests modalism, the idea that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are simply three ways in which God lives, or three ways in which God interacts with humanity, or three ways in which God appears to us.

Now there are a lot of things wrong with modalism (more in future postings), but for now, consider this: trinitarian theories are supposed to be by definition incompatible with modalism – i.e. claims which, if they’re true, then it follows that modalism is false. Put differently, modalism is a classic heresy, that trinitiarian thinking is designed to avoid.

You may be reading this and saying “What the heck? What you’re calling “modalism”, is just what I thought the doctrine of the Trinity was!” Well, there’s a reason why many people have that reaction, but that’s a topic for a future post. For now, here’s some of the back story on modalism, and the boilerplate apologetics explanation of what is wrong with it.

So what is wrong with saying “there are three persons in God” or that “God exists in three persons”. Nothing is wrong with it – unless you want to be clearly understood! The problem is that pesky little word “in”. I won’t try to catalogue all of the concepts that the English word “in” can express, but here are a few:

  1. spatial inclusion – There is milk in my class.
  2. set membership – 2 is in the even numbers.
  3. parts-whole relation – My heart is in my circulatory system.
  4. what it’s made of – Her sculpture of Carrot Top was in cheddar cheese.
  5. faculty possession – Reason and will are in me, and every other normal human being.
  6. class membership – Lions and tigers are in the cat family.

Now go back to “there are three Persons in God”. What might this mean? 1-2 seem irrelevant, but what about 3-6? Are we saying, for example, that the Father is a part of God? (3) Or that he’s made of the divine stuff? (4) Or just that he’s divine (6)? Or is the Father being “in God” equivalent to “God relates to us as Father” or “God is fatherly” (5)? (Doh! Modalism again…)

So my suggestion is that the ways of talking discussed here are unhelpful, and should be avoided. They are ambiguous at best, and heretical at worst. It’s best to say what we mean.

Q: What do you mean when you say “I believe in the Trinity”? If you met someone totally unfamiliar with the concept, how would you briefly explain it?

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5 thoughts on ““the” Trinity doctrine – Part 1”

  1. Pingback: trinities - trinities turns 5 (Dale)

  2. Dale,

    Thanks for your reply. I’m not a theist, and so not personally invested in the question, but I’ve long wondered why the more philosophical believers insist on applying the principle of non-contradiction to matters of faith. The insistence seems to imply that there is no room for paradox (or contradiction, or whatever the proper term is for things that don’t make discursive sense) in religion: Lady Philosophia, as Dr. Vallicella might put it, triumphs over all, including God.

    What bugs me most about the attitude is that it attempts to render explicable that which by its very nature is inexplicable (or so it would seem). It also tweaks Tertullian in the nose: is he not the one who enjoined Christians to believe because the resurrection is absurd?

    Actually, forget all the above: I suppose the meta-question is more important, and it’s really what I’m getting at: to what extent is religious belief a matter of logic?

    I understand that, for many Christians, faith and reason can walk hand-in-hand, each aiding the other, but they remain distinct, each called by its own name, fides et ratio. If this is so, then I surmise there is something about faith that defies reason. The philosopher’s project strikes me as one of dispensing with faith entirely in an effort to reason one’s way to God. How plausible a project is this? How far can reason take one? And ultimately, from God’s all-compassionate point of view, how much does it matter?

    Anyway– very interesting blog. I saw you coming on strong against “mystery-mongering” in your recent post! Ha ha! Well, variety is the spice of life. How boring it would be if we all simply nodded in agreement all our lives, eh?

    Thank you very much for those links; I’ll be sure to read them.

    Kevin

  3. Hi Kevin,

    Yeah, the triangle analogy doesn’t look too helpful, except to trinitarians who want to say that the Three are each necessary parts of God. There’s only one contemporary theory out there that I know of that comes close to this: the one in this interesting book.

    If by “mystery” you mean, real and not only apparent contradiction, well, that’s kind of disappointing, as what is contradictory is false. If you mean only an apparent contradiction, that’s worrisome… how do we know it isn’t a real one?

    You may enjoy this piece. It’s a very smart guy refuting me, though I think he and I agree that appeal to mystery ought to be a last resort.

    Best,
    Dale

  4. This may sound like a cop-out, but I thought the Trinity was something beyond rational explanation– a mystery.

    Personally, I like the triangle analogy, but I can see how it succumbs to the parts/whole problem: each vertex is distinct and the triangle is a single whole, but each vertex is also only a part and therefore not to be confused with the whole.

    In defense of that analogy, however, I’d note that the triangle’s vertices are absolutely necessary to the triangle: there’s no triangle without them. The triangle embodies distinctness and wholeness at the same time: three AND one.

    Still, faulty Euclidean analogies aside– I doubt we can get much further than “it’s a paradox” or “it’s a mystery.” Consider Jesus’ two natures: if I’m not mistaken, the orthodox conception is that he’s both fully human and fully divine: not 50-50, but 100-100. Obviously, that’s impossible,* yet traditional Christians are enjoined to believe this.

    Kevin

    *This isn’t the same as the non-paradox of being both “fully a husband” and “fully a teacher,” as we’re talking about something more basic here– it’s more on the order of being “fully an orange” and “fully a car,” i.e., the 100-100 of wildly different essential natures.

    PS: Or, we could take the approach that the Trinity is best construed as a pious ontological metaphor about the nondualistic, perichoretic interrelationship between the One and the Many, unity and diversity, Form and Emptiness (if I may slip in a little Heart Sutra).

  5. Pingback: “the doctrine” - Part 3 at trinities

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