Skip to content

the evolution of my views on the Trinity – part 5

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, 55F (13C) 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, and he had an excellent way of ratting out bad philosophy, such as people parading a pet theory, skating by on the abuse of abstract nouns, or simply not reading a text carefully enough. This last one was a biggie. Having written his dissertation on Aristotle (and, on one of the most obscure issues in Aristotle), he was acutely aware of how medieval philosophers and 20th c. Thomists would misread Aristotle through the lenses of their own theories. He had an intense work ethic and attention to detail. I teased him about his caffeine intake, and about his paper with 400 references at the end. But I also tried to imitate his seriousness and precision. At one point, perhaps half way through, after reading a term paper of mine he informed me that I’d turned a corner in my development as a philosopher, and that meant a lot to me.

Jim Van Cleve, who we students referred to as “JVC”, is another unique and dear man. Terrifically smart, he’s naturally humble and soft-spoken, but not easily swayed. He’ll sit there and listen through some big-shot philosopher’s paper, taking notes, then raise his hand, and without the slightest pretense puncture the whole thing with one softly spoken, sincerely asked question. He’s an early modern philosophy specialist, and honestly, I should have taken more courses with him than I did. One year he did a great graduate seminar on the philosophy of Thomas Reid. From a Caston course, I’d become interested in the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom, and had plunged into the literature on that problem, as well as the literature on what philosophers call logical fatalism. With Van Cleve, I read some fascinating work by logicians on temporal logics, work which was in large measure inspired by the traditional discussions. He has great patience in working through technical, dense material.

dr-evil-mini-meThere were few Christian students at Brown (except my friend Michael Pace) and no openly Christian professors, and no philosophy of religion specialists. But I came to think this was good for me. Rather than immediately attaching myself to some great Christian philosopher and becoming his mini-me, I was forced to develop my own views. Happily, Caston and Van Cleve were both interested in many questions of philosophy of religion. And also, Brown was more theist-tolerant, I think, than some top programs, due to its most famous recent philosopher Roderick Chisholm (who retired just before I went to Brown – never met him) being somewhat of a closet theist. I think Brown’s philosophical culture at the time – tough-minded, but somewhat restrained, polite, was in large measure due to him. I’ve heard stories of other places literally making a sport of devouring visiting speakers. At Brown they’d refute you, but leave your dignity intact.

I also much appreciated Ernest Sosa. He too was an admirably sharp and quick intellect, a profound and original epistemologist. I took and greatly enjoyed a couple of his seminars, but ended up veering away from epistemology, and towards the history of philosophy and philosophy of religion. He too was kind and helpful to me. At the time, and I assume still, he was an ex-Christian agnostic, but being friendly with folks like Plantinga, he took the view that theists and non-theists can learn a lot from one another. I agree.

There were others who helped me too, but I’d better get to the Trinity part. Towards the end of my career at Brown, I started to think about the Trinity. At some point, two friends and I – my best Christian friend in the program and another friend who was a former Christian and agnostic, decided to read through Richard Swinburne’s The Christian God. Wow! Professor Swinburne really knows how to argueI was much impressed, though not entirely sure I believed it. I was soon aware that Ed Feser and Kelly James Clark had argued in print that Swinburne was a tritheist. (Refs here.) But I thought, well, this doctrine is pretty important. So what if it is tritheism? Maybe trinitarianism just is the right sort of tritheism. I mean, Swinburne plausibly argues that the three Persons necessarily cooperate, and can’t disagree. They are all divine and they function as if they are one agent.

At some point, as was my habit, I was digging around in the bowels of Brown’s excellent library, and ran across a book by a theology Ph.D. named Thomas Pfizenmaier, on Samuel Clarke‘s views on the Trinity. I read it, and was fascinated. In brief, it was a lot like what Swinburne was saying; the persons of the Trinity were really persons/selves. All are (arguably) called “God” in the Bible, but the Father was (in some mysterious sense) the source of the others, and Clarke argues, he’s called “God” in a higher sense of the term. Plainly, Clarke had done his homework. I obtained a copy of his massive Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, in which he numbers and sorts every verse in the New Testament that has to do with the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. He then quotes (in Greek or Latin) pre-Nicene church fathers on these, and translates those quotes, and in the end summarizes what he says is the biblical Trinity doctrine in 55 propositions. Amazing. Why is this book out of print? Why have these arguments been ignored by academic theology for the last 200+ years? The more I read, the more I wondered. Eventually I reprinted it myself.

In short, Swinburne made me a social trinitarian, though I didn’t call it that at the time. And Clarke too, I saw, had a three agent, three self view of the Trinity. I saw that this was in a sense a point of logic. If each “Person” really is a person, and some things are true of each that aren’t true of the other two, then we really do have three here. Modalism, that is, any one-self theory, will not do. The Son must be a different self than the Father, if he is to be our mediator, our everlasting high priest. I can’t remember if it was at Brown or shortly thereafter, but at some point I read articles by the analytic theologian Cornelius Plantinga making a plausible case that “social” Trinity theories were what the 4th c. Greek fathers meant all along. At the time I believed this, but now I think it is mistaken. What the 4th c. “Cappadocian Fathers” were up to is complicated, and it is just not helpful to say that they “emphasize God’s threeness” or “prefer the social analogy.” I don’t think either is true. They are, rather, strong partisans of what is now called “Pro-Nicene” theology.

I was becoming aware that one’s theological theories really shape how one interprets the Bible, to an alarming degree. This was an application of what I learned from Victor Caston. I realized that I needed to really revisit the whole issue, looking at the Bible on its own terms, and finding a consistent way to understand it. I’d had experiences in church of the preacher reading a text, and basically saying, with little to no shame, “Well, we can see here that it seems to say P. Of course, we all know that not-P is true.” And then he’d move on! There’s no integrity in that, I decided, and I just can’t be that smug, that complacent in what my tradition tells me it is supposed to say.

I also started to realize that despite the similarities, there were some pretty important differences between Swinburne and Clarke.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

25 thoughts on “the evolution of my views on the Trinity – part 5”

  1. Hi Dale,

    I was wondering if you’ve heard of or read the book, “A Seal on the Lips of Unitarians, Trinitarians and All Others….” ??

  2. Hi Dale,

    I really like what you said at the end of “Part 5” about coming to “[the realization] that I [Dale] needed to really revisit the whole issue, looking at the Bible on its own terms, and finding a consistent way to understand it.”

    I think this has been lost upon a lot of biblical interpreters who’ve followed the fallacious tendency of many scholars and critics to defer the authority of the biblical writers away from their own use of language in order to force an interpretation that conforms to external sources, later theological propositions, and other speculation.

    1. ” conforms to external sources” Amen to that. It is very, very hard to get the Nicene goggles off.

      We agree, I think, that no minority interpretation should be accepted just because it is minority, or new, or cool, or best fits current fashions, but only because it well-motivated and illuminating of the works in question. That’s a very high bar, and I think until we reach that level, it is best to stick with traditional readings. I started with those, and slowly worked my way out.

  3. Hi Dale,

    I am really enjoying your autobiographical series. Though you and I started our deeper theological reflections from quite different beginnings (yours being Trinitarian and mine Arian), some parallels exist in the development/evolution of our respective positions.

    In today’s installment, you pointed out that your discovery of Samuel Clarke’s, Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity came via, “a book by a theology Ph.D. named Thomas Pfizenmaier”. Though you did not give the title of the book, I am quite sure that it is his, The Trinitarian Theology of Dr. Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) – Brill, 1997, that you were referencing.

    My discovery of Clarke’s work also came via Pfizenmaier’s book (though a couple of years after you).

    Interestingly enough, I posted a thread on this back in 2008 LINK. (About three years later I found your website.)

    Anyway, wanted to share this with you; looking forward to more installments…

    Grace and peace,

    David

        1. Never was an “Arian” properly speaking, and never called myself that. But yes, I used to believe that Jesus existed before he was a human. I’ll get into this in a future segment, which as yet is unwritten – stay tuned.

          1. Since you’ve been at both ends of the Christian spectrum, i.e. Trinitarian and Unitarian, perhaps your pendulum will swing back the other way a little and you’ll finally settle on a view that embraces Christ real personal preexistence:-)

            I sometimes tend to favor middle positions, e.g. I don’t believe in eternal torment or universal salvation, but favor annihilationism instead, and I don’t believe in the Trinity or Socinian-type Unitarianism, but favor a view that embraces Christ’s real personal heavenly preexistence instead, which seems unavoidable to me.

              1. Dale
                The writings of Samuel Clarke seems to have had a great impact on a number of intelligent people.
                Do his writings (in your opinion) lead to a Trinity model which is consistent?
                Blessings
                John

                1. Hi John – it depends what you mean. I think it is a self-consistent sort of unitarian theology. As with, e.g. Origen or Tertullian, “the Trinity” on this view refers to a group, one member of which is God. But if by “Trinity model” you mean a properly speaking trinitarian theology, on which there is a tripersonal god, it is not that. Clarke would never consider calling his views “unitarian,” although many later describe him (quite correctly, in my view) that way. In his day, “unitarian” was associated with Socinianism proper, and also with the sort of unitarianism on which Jesus did not exist before being a human – and Clarke had no loyalty to either.

                  1. Hi Dale,
                    I’m sure you are aware of comments made by Rea in ‘Logos’ that the doctrine of the Trinity appears to be logically inconsistent’ – echoed by The Catholic Encyclopedia which uses the words ‘appears to involve an irreconcilable contradiction’
                    Both writers then go on to suggest a model based on ‘Relational Identity’
                    Both of the proposed models are not credible to the ‘real world’ and even if they were would contradict the scriptures.!
                    As you say, Unitarian theology is generally self-consistent .
                    I appreciate your assessment of Clarkes work.
                    From the scriptures it is cleat that God is a ‘self’ – and independently thinking and acting being.
                    If Trinitarian models are not logically consistent where can Trinitarians go in order to remain credible?
                    Blessings
                    John

                    1. Dale
                      Having read some of your material I guess that the ‘last resort’ of Trinitarians wishing to remain ‘consistent’ is Social Trinitarianism, but as your post shows, this is not supported by scripture.
                      As you also intimated, when forced ‘to the wall’ one can declare the whole thing to be a ‘mystery’ and forget about the problems.
                      I have no difficulties with ‘mystery’ – after all God is a mystery.
                      Man made mysteries are a different thing! Just human rationalisation!
                      Blessings
                      John

                  2. I.E. Theophilus Ad Autolycus Book 2, Chapter 15: “??? ???????, ??? ???? ??? ??? ????? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ?????”

                    Note: ??? ????

                    1. You leave us to guess at your point, but I guess it is that you think the triad is here said to be “of God” – perhaps your idea is that here we see an assertion of a tripersonal God.

                      But here is how we translate this passage, from the ANF
                      “…the three days… are types of the Trinity [better: trinity, or triad], of God, and His Word, and His wisdom.” p. 101

                      Notice that the one God is *a member of* the Trinity here. The whole book assumes that “the god” is the Father; there is no suggestion of a tripersonal god. This is a classic example of what Wolfson calls a “two-stage” Logos theory, on which the Logos comes to exist (i.e. comes to exist as a being, not as a mere attribute) just before creation. (II.10 and II.22)

                      When looking at a translation of this, be aware that the translators, I think for theological reasons, will often render (not ho theos, but) theos as “God.” If you know some Greek, then you’ll know why this can be a problem.

                      1. I apologize Dale. I didn’t make my point clear at all. Sorry.

                        I was actually agreeing with you, when you said: “As with, e.g. Origen or Tertullian, “the Trinity” on this view refers to a group, one member of which is God.”

                        As in the case of Theophilus of Antioch, one of the group, was “God” i.e. ??? ???? = a stand alone identity. That was my point.

                        Theophilus was not saying that “God” was the Tri{3}ad, or that the Tri{3}ad was God. Nor was Theophilus saying that “the three” were collectively the God.

                        At that time, there was no unity aspect attached to the word ???????, (or ?????). Plus there is no three-within-oneness inherent in the etymology of ???????, (or ?????). At all. Compare Book 1, Chapter 20, Sections 1-9, of “Noctes Atticae” by Aulus Gellius, (circa. 125-after-185 C.E.), where ???????, (or ?????) = Ltn., “ternio”. Gk., “???????”, (or ?????) is a common Greek word of simple enumeration.

                        Ltn., “trinitas” which was a word later coined or invented by the apostate Christian heretic, Tertullain. The self confessed follower of the false prophet Montanus.

                        Last of all, the context forbids it. See ??????? in the very next breath/sentence.

                        The person Who was definitively God to Theophilus, was a separate identity in and of Himself. “The God,” in this context, is simply enumerated with two other subjects as reflecting a “type,” in a series of types. It is quite likely that the “??? ????? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ?????”, of God here, are referring to His impersonal qualities of reason and wisdom. Just a couple of sentences preceding this passage Theophilus writes:

                        “…And as the sun remains ever full, never becoming less, so does God always abide perfect, being – ( full of ) – all power, and understanding, and
                        [Gk., ?????? ] wisdom, and immortality, and all good…”

                        Notice also the twice repeated Gk., ?????, in:

                        “??? ???????, ??? ???? ??? ??? ????? ????? ??? ??? ?????? ?????,”

                        Lit., “of the three [Or: “group of three” “triad”], of the One Who [is] definitively God, and of the word/logos ( of Him ), and of the wisdom/sophia ( of Him ).”

                        So Dale. I agree with you that there is no tri{3}personal God here. I agree that there is “three” enumerated here, and that the Father, as ? ???? is one of them. I’m not Tri{3}nitarian, nor promoting belief in a Ltn., “trinitas”.

                2. Dale,

                  Good point. Sometimes people take the “middle ground” because they aren’t capable of making up their minds one way or the other. 🙂

        2. Hi Keefa,

          My current position is virtually identical to that of Samuel Clarke. In THIS THREAD, I sum up my current view in “5 propositions”.

          As for why I moved away from Arianism (BTW, I was raised a JW—4th generation), it was in no small due to my reading of the early Church Fathers, and the fact that Arianism had/has no “convincing antecedent” prior to Arius (see R.P.C. Hanson’s The Search for the Doctrine of God, p. 88).

          Grace and peace,

          David

          1. Hi David,

            While Arianism proper probably didn’t exist before Arius, the belief that Jesus existed in heaven prior to his earthly life almost certainly did.

            I have a very different perspective, i.e. I would never move toward or away from any theological position in response to reading the “Fathers.” They’re simply to late in time and intellectual place to be trusted to get right what earliest Christianity was about. They seem more useful in showing how later Christianity diverged from its antecedents, but not for establishing continuity.

            ~Sean

      1. Thanks, David. That is a nice post on Clarke’s views. Yeah, his is basically a pre-Nicene catholic view. He heavily cites Novation, Origen, Tertullian, and others in support of his views. I now think that he is too complacent in accepting some traditional arguments, e.g. for Jesus’s two natures, or for the deity and distinct personality of the spirit. But he was, as an Anglican minister, strongly motivated to be catholic – just less catholic than Catholics.

    Comments are closed.