A Reply to Radde-Gallwitz’s “God is not a Thing”

When I saw Dr. Radde-Gallwitz’s response to my piece in TheoLogica, I read it, grew frustrated at its many misunderstandings, and set it aside as too much work to respond to. But now it has been again publicly posted, so I’ll give a brief reply here.

First, let me say that I appreciate and have benefitted from a lot of Dr. Radde-Gallwitz’s work. This piece of his misses the mark in important ways, but that is because of the difficulty of cross-cultural (cross-disciplinary) communication. No doubt, I could have been clearer in what I wrote, and his piece has alerted me to ways that very learned people can mistake what I’m up to. He did not send me a draft beforehand or discuss things with me, so I could let him know whether or not he was on the right track. Had he read more of my work, this would not have been necessary; but in my view no one should be obligated to read a ton of someone’s work just to write a response piece. But one either has to do that, or communicate with the author, if one is going to understand quite what that author is up to, at least, with an author who is not a complete idiot and who has been thinking hard about something for a couple of decades.

Dr. Radde-Gallwitz was unfortunately distracted by my being a unitarian. Knowing this, he leapt to the conclusion that I am so because I think the doctrine of the Trinity to be patently self-contradictory, and so obviously false. He then had an eagle eye out for anything in the article that would say what I thought this contradiction was. And knowing that my training is in analytic philosophy, he was on the lookout too for how analytic biases might cause me to misunderstand the Cappadocian “fathers.”

Those who have read this will know that I don’t think there is or ever has been one “doctrine of the Trinity.” What there has been is mandated language which is attached to some none-too-clear ideas and images. When people try to make sense of it all, providing interpretations of these words and images, they come up with different, largely clashing theories about God.

Knowing this, I have never argued, “Aha! The doctrine of the Trinity is on the same level as a square-circle. It’s plainly incoherent and so must be false.” No, my approach has always been, tell me what you mean by ousia and by hypostases (and by “the Trinity”), and then we can explore the theological, logical, biblical, or philosophical problems faced by that theory. See, e.g. the chapters in my friendly little book What is the Trinity?  or my published pieces on Bill Hasker’s Trinity theory. I of course have my own views about universals and such, but if you’re going to offer a Trinity theory, you can include along with that whatever philosophical views you want. I’m going to sit back while you do that, and then discuss the ins and outs of the resulting theory, with its philosophical merits or baggage, as the case may be. So the Tuggy of Radde-Gallwitz’s paper, who dismisses “the Trinity” as “bad math”—he’s not real.

Those various Trinity theories have various difficulties, some more serious than others. But those are not what changed me from a trinitarian Christian to a unitarian Christian. Rather, I’m not a trinitarian because as best I can tell (1) there is no basis for any triune-God doctrine in the New Testament, and (2) any view on which God is the Trinity clashes with New Testament (and Old Testament) teaching about the one God. In the podcast he cites I explain what amounts to very strong evidence that the authors of the New Testament think the one God to be the Father rather than the Trinity, but Radde-Gallwitz doesn’t engage with that. But he shouldn’t in this piece, because this piece is not arguing against Trinity theories, but is only documenting their historical genesis, and refuting what I believe to be Branson’s false narrative about that.

Some ancient Christians, like Justin and Origen, thought the one true God and the Father to be one and the same. Other ancient Christians, like Augustine and Gregory of Nazianzus, held the clashing and newer view that the one God and the Trinity are one and the same. That’s quite a change! How did that happen? That’s my main interest in this piece—not that I give a complete answer. I mostly just document the change, as in previous work Branson had fingered Augustine as the culprit, as the non-Greek-reading boob who misunderstood the Cappadocian theology. (I don’t know that Branson still thinks this, by the way.) And it is Branson, not me, who points to the Cappadocians as the defining exemplars of trinitarian orthodoxy. I have always recognized that for some trinitarians those three guys are not an authority. For example, many argue for “the doctrine of the Trinity” based on the Bible alone. Others care only or mainly about the “ecumenical” creeds, or about later Reformed creeds, or the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, etc.

I think that in his response Dr. Radde-Gallwitz assumes, as many theologians and patristic scholars do, that Basil, Gregory, and the other Gregory hold variants of what is fundamentally the same theology. Branson agrees. He thinks that each holds the one God to be numerically one with the Father, and also, there are two more divine Persons. He has argued that none of the three commits to God being tripersonal. I disagree. I find the idea of a triune God in Nazianzus and Nyssa, but not in Basil. Now, it’s not always easy to tell whether or not a given passage reflects the assumption that the one God is the Trinity, and all three are very conservative in their language, and so mainly stick to older phrases even while (in my view) the two Gregories have moved on to a view on which the one God and the Father are not one and the same, but rather, the one God and the Trinity are one and the same. Such a one will typically, as I discuss in the paper, use “the Trinity” as a singular referring term for the one God. I think that Dr. Radde-Gallwitz believes in the Trinity as the one God too, much as he might fuss that those six words are not enough to express his theology. Of course they are not. But in my view the tripersonal God is a fiction. He thinks that god is real.

Note here that I am speaking purely about purported (concrete) realities—not about words or concepts. Someone who thinks the one God and the Trinity are one and the same need not also think that “God” and “the Trinity” are synonymous terms or express the same concept. Nor need he think that those two terms are always interchangeable. Only the first, the identification (as it were, collapsing together) of what may appear to be two realities is, in my view, required for being a trinitarian. (Branson disagrees.) I think most trinitarians agree; they would find the idea of a trinitarian who doesn’t believe in a tripersonal God to be an oxymoron, like “married bachelor.”

“The Son is God” is a standard trinitarian sentence. Recent “social” trinitarians tell us that when they say that, they are using the word “God” predicatively; in other words, the sentence is describing the Son as divine. That’s fine. That’s one use of the term “God” in English and many other languages. Other trinitarians by that sentence mean to identify the Son and God, to assert their numerical identity. (We know this by the arguments they make, among other things.) I just address each on his own terms.

Radde-Gallwitz pounces on my comparison of the term “God” with a proper name like “Samuel Clemens.” But the point is just that the word “God” is often used, both then and now, as a singular referring term, a way to pick out or refer to the only god. E.g. “God created the world.” That sentence describes God, but (at least, mainly) not using the word “God”; “God” there picks out the reality in question and the rest of the sentence asserts something about that reality.

Singular referring terms and phrases can also have meaning. This is (supposing a fictional situation) true: “Superman is so-called because of his powers.” The name “Superman” refers to a certain man, but also carries the meaning that he has super powers. Many ancient authors were maniacs about etymologies; many would urge that “God” is so-called because [insert some alleged derivation of the word “God” from some related word(s)].

Whether such claims are true are false is irrelevant to anything I’m doing in this paper. Plausibly, the term “Father” in a Christian theological context refers, but also has meaning. One may think that the Father is so-called because he’s the source of all else, and/or because of his relation to the Son. But when I say that someone thinks f = g, that the Father and the one God are one and the same, the only point is that such a person would deny that the Father is one and the one God is another. Put differently, in their mental catalogue of realities, there is only one place for both the Father and for the one God. It’s not that she thinks the words “Father” and “God” mean the same or can always be swapped or express the same concept. f = g (The Father just is God; that is to say, the Father and God are numerically one) is something all unitarian Christians think. Some trinitarians, oddly enough, agree. But they add that: s = g, and h = g. (Other trinitarians deny all three of those claims. I suspect that Radde-Gallwitz is among them.) But because some trinitarians agree that f = g, to clarify the unitarian position we must say that a unitarian Christian thinks that the Father and the one God are one and the same, and that no one else (i.e. no one distinct from the Father) is one and the same with God.

Radde-Gallwitz also falls into the trap of thinking that I’m not a trinitarian because I am committed to some rigid word-usage that leads me astray. He writes,

Tuggy uses the term “Father” in such a way that implies it is a referring term, but not a term that requires any semantic explication. (One wonders of whom or what he is father).

No, use of “the Father” as a singular referring term does not presuppose that it is only that.

Indeed, so clear is the term’s reference that “the Father” serves in turn as the normal referent of another term, “God” (ho theos), in the New Testament.

Yes, this is a fact about the word theos in the New Testament. The overwhelming, 99+% use of theos there is in reference to the Father. See, e.g. this widely-cited monograph.

For Tuggy, “God” is just another name for the Father.

Nope. Tuggy doesn’t use the word “God” in only one way. We can use it, my trinitarian friend, however you want to. Nothing about my views requires the claim that “God” can only be used to refer to the Father. In fact, I deny that. In my view, “God” refers to the Son at least in Hebrews 1:8. This usage becomes much more popular in the second century. You can use “God” to refer to the Trinity; I understand that usage, although for me since the Trinity is a fiction, when you do that you’re failing to refer to any real object. But I can discuss theology with you on the assumption that “the Trinity” does refer to God.

Tuggy’s position that the one God just is the Father alone amounts to saying that “God” and “Father” function like “Mark Twain” and “Samuel Clemens” or “Cephas” and “Peter.”

Nope, not at all. Someone might think God and the Father are the same while holding that the terms “God” and “Father” purely refer, or that that they both refer and have some descriptive meaning too.

In the podcast, Tuggy gives as a parallel to “Father” and “God” various nicknames or epithets used interchangeably for Donald Trump: “Mr. Trump,” “The Donald,” and “The Most Embarassing U.S. President Ever.” The last one in this list does sneak in a meaning and is not strictly a proper name, but the point in context is that it is equivalent semantically with the others. The various titles can be substituted with no change of reference, and the same is true when “God” and “Father” are swapped in, for instance, John 17.

Right. The point is that “God” and “the Father” can be and are used as co-referring terms. And that’s the main New Testament usage of theos and ho theos. The comparison to proper names and nicknames just highlights the referring function of each term. Nothing depends on either term being a pure, non-descriptive referring term. Nothing in my theological position, and no point in the present piece our friend is responding to, requires that “God” is a proper name.

“God” and “Father” therefore are for Tuggy interchangeable proper names in the authoritative source. This provides grounds for thinking that the one God just is the Father.

Let us take care here. Yes, “God” and “Father” can be used as co-referring, and so as (normally—philosophers say in non-intensional contexts) interchangeable. And I there provided examples of New Testament authors seemingly interchanging them purely for stylistic reasons. And this is evidence that they identified God with the Father. (Note: this last point is wholly about non-names—it’s about that to which “God” and the “Father” refer.) But it is only one evidence of many, as explained in that podcast, and at greater length in my opening chapter in the forthcoming debate book (preview here).

Tuggy’s linguistic view contrasts with that of the Cappadocians. Basil and Gregory of Nyssa take “God” and “Father” to signify concepts.

Surely both Basil and Greg N. do think that the term “God” and the term “the Father” do refer to more than concepts. Someone who holds those words to not be “pure” referring terms, but to have descriptive content, will think that such terms refer to their referents by means of certain descriptions, whatever exactly is the content of the relevant concepts. Radde-Gallwitz tells us that

Basil and his younger brother have removed the option of speaking of God as a “thing,” as anything at all like an Aristotelian primary substance.

Most certainly, in my view, both of these assume that God can be referred to. (Yes, by means of terms which in their view also have descriptive meaning.) I’m not sure what Radde-Gallwitz means here by “speaking of God as a ‘thing’ ” . . . I’ll hazard a guess that he means holding that the word “God” purely refers but expresses no descriptive content.

Later he writes,

it follows that we do not start with such a clear conception of Father that we can equate it with God. One cannot therefore reduce theology to a simple identification of Father with God.

Let me try to paraphrase this: “Father” and “God” express different concepts or different descriptions. Therefore it is a mistake to use them as if they expressed the same concept or the same description(s). And of course a good Christian theology must include more than that.

I agree with my attempted paraphrase above; but as concerns the subject-matter of the paper, it is neither here nor there. Someone who identifies God and the Father—committing, that is, to the view that we have just mentioned the same referent twice—can agree with Radde-Gallwitz’s points just above. “God” and “the Father” being co-referential doesn’t require either that they are only referring terms or that they include descriptions but those are the same. “God” is by definition a (and the) god, and I’ve said what I think the content of the concept of a god is here.

In sum, I’ve not responded to much in his paper. But that’s because quite a lot of it is not relevant to what’s going on in my piece. Certainly, the Cappadocians’ views about universals and particulars are both tricky and interesting in their own right, and they are relevant to interpreting their doctrines. But a few asides about what I see as problems in their view do not amount to an attack on the coherence of their theology (supposing them to have one). But Radde-Gallwitz’s piece is at bottom an apologetic defense of their views; we even get a version of this. Such a defense is out of place when the subject being discussed is quite when the mainstream tradition switched from the view that f = g, which is so clear, for instance, in the works of Origen, to the view that t = g, which is so clear, for instance, in the works of Augustine and many later authors. Branson finds that switch only after the Cappadocians; I find it in Gregory of Nazianzus, and less clearly in Gregory of Nyssa, but not in Basil of Caesarea. I could be wrong, of course, about the Gregories. But the switch and its importance can’t be denied.

Again, no one should judge Dr. Radde-Gallwitz’s scholarship by this interaction. See, e.g. his many publications here and his collection of early theological works. I learned recently that he has been suffering from long Covid since 2020. Having had Covid twice, I find this heartbreaking. I remember that foggy-headed feeling and the fatigue, and I can’t imagine what a struggle this must be. Let us pray for him, that his body finally defeats that cursed virus so he can return fully to his important work.