At his blogs Ben Nasmith has been writing so very good posts weighing trinitarian vs. unitarian theologies, and in particular thinking about Richard Bauckham and Samuel Clarke.
In Monotheism and the unitarian-trinitarian dilemma he concludes, I think rightly:
to answer this question we need a clear understanding of the monotheism of the Bible.
That links to a post at his other blog, THE “HERESY OF CLARITY” – WHEREFORE THE “MONO” IN MONOTHEISM? I knew there was going to be a problem when I read,
Bauckham has been criticized for being unclear in this book, but I think he actually provides a great deal of clarity.
Mayday! 😉
Nasmith concludes,
So long as the persons are all divine (in the black and white sense described above) and perfectly unified in their rule over the cosmos, such a Trinity qualifies as monotheistic by early Jewish standards and there is no legitimate threat of tritheism.
His argument, essentially, is that Jewish monotheism allows multiple gods, so long as they’re unified. And, he thinks, the New Testament presents multiple gods, who are unified – a three-self Trinity. Thus, the three-self Trinity presented in the New Testament is monotheistic, in the relevant sense of “monotheistic.”
In my view, there are some serious mistakes here. The Old Testament says that Yahweh is the one God, and the New Testament assumes and asserts the identity of this God with with the one Jesus calls “Father.” It is decisively for the claim that the ultimate reality is a “He” and not an “It.” Jewish monotheism is, true, compatible with there being other “gods” (elohim); and in general, all the Abrahamic monotheisms allow any number of lesser gods, deities, or divine beings.
See the relevant analysis here, in some work of mine in progress. I warn you, though, terminology is a real problem here, and I’m not sure what the best way is to get around it!
We can put it this way. According to monotheism, there is one GOD, no matter how many gods there are. (Any GOD must be a god, but not vice-versa.) But our friend Ben Nasmith is suggesting that Jewish monotheism is consistent with there being three GODS. But of course, it is not – it’s a form of monotheism, when all’s said and done. Jewish monotheism strongly insists that the one God is Yahweh / the Father, and that no one else is.
Bauckham’s analysis is ambiguous between these arguments:
- Any creator is God. (i.e. is numerically identical to God)
- Jesus created.
- Therefore, Jesus is God (i.e. “they” are in fact numerically one).
Ben has realized that this conclusion simply can’t be true, whether “God” means the Father, on the Trinity – because Jesus has differed from either of those. So he’s choosing to read Bauckham as arguing,
- Any creator is a GOD. (i.e. has the highest kind or degree of divinity)
- Jesus created.
- Therefore, Jesus is a GOD. (i.e. is a divinity of the highest kind or sort)
The Father, then, will be another GOD. Nasmith calls this “the divine category” and “the divine portion of reality” – but of course, why think such a portion is itself a GOD, rather than just being the domain of GODS. (Another problem is whether there could possibly be more than one GOD.)
Nasmith quotes Bauckham saying (correctly) that it was only after the Christians came along that the Jews started to insist that “God is one” meant not only that there’s one God (GOD) but also that there are no parts or distinctions within that one God. Perhaps, then, he means the argument to be:
- Any creator is a part of the one GOD.
- Jesus created.
- Therefore, Jesus is a part of the one GOD.
Analysis is one thing needed here, but exegesis is another. In my view, and I discuss this in a forthcoming paper which has been held up at journals for over a year and a half, the Old Testament really supports premise 1 of the first argument above, but not the first premises of the second or third arguments.
Also, we must question premise 2, as a good number of interpreters, both trinitarian and unitarian, have interpreted the standard Jesus-created-the-cosmos proof-texts as really having to do with Paul’s idea of the new creation, and not with the Genesis creation.
Ben has a number of other good posts on the Trinity; I’m sure we’ll discuss more of them here in the near future.
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Thanks Jaco, that’s helpful and I’ll take a look.
Matthew,
The designation “Father” had a special place in charismatic Judaism. Its Sitz im Leben is with the charismatic figures of the time, in particular Hanina ben Dosa and Honi the Circle-drawer. “Abba” was the way the charismatic addressed God. And, as Geza Vermes pointed out,
It is also evident that to the NT writers, Father and YHWH was one and the same (Ac. 2:22, 3:13, 17:31, etc.).
Hi Ben,
You can consider James McGrath’s contribution in his Only True God, pp. 13-15, 56-58. Also Creatio ex nihilo by Gerhard May. Another great contribution, especially to the whole “worship” issue, is presented in “The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism” by several contributors. See esp. those by Margaret Barker and Crispin Fletcher-Louis. The idea of fuzziness in distinction has also been presented by Dunn, Christology in the Making, where he describes the Logos as that which brings people into God’s presence and which makes God present with humans. As the pioneer of New Creation humanity, where God can be truly encountered in His image (Man), Jesus displayed superbly how the humanity he was ancestor of would also be the arena where God could be encountered.
Jaco,
I’m interested in what convinced you that divinity is better thought of as a gradient (or continuum) rather than a distinct (discrete) category (as Bauckham argues). Any resources that you find particularly helpful that you could point me to? More specifically, what makes you think that second Temple monotheism regarded divinity as a continuum rather than a discrete (in or out) category, contrary to Bauckham? What makes you think this is a later development?
Thanks,
Great post, Dale
I also have some reservations on Bauckham’s clear divide between GOD and CREATION. This clear divide only emerged in later centuries, so that the poles between GOD and CREATION was more like a continuum than a clear and distinct categorical chasm. Jesus (and many other intermediary figures) is presented as the “phase” where GOD and CREATION come together, which is also indeed the kind of glory held out to every other Christian (Ro. 8:29, 2 Cor. 3:18, Eph. 3:14, 2 Pet. 1:4). Bauckham’s proposal is inadequate precisely since his categorization process is faulty.
Hi!
Are we not confusing ‘nature’ with ‘identity’?
Nature is ‘what we are”
Identity is ‘who’ we are.
If I say that I am John and have a human nature – and that Adolf Hitler had a human nature, does not make me Adolf Hitler.!
God has a divine nature.
Christ had a human nature – and a divine nature by inheritance
Believers have a human nature – but scripture tells us that we share that divine nature.
Christ’s identity shows that he was not ‘God’
Our identity shows that we are neither Christ nor God
The Trinitarians can talk till KIngdom come – but all their search for ‘nuances’ and ‘subtleties’ is in vain since -to be quite blunt, there are NO ‘proof texts’ which support the Trinity.
Trinitarians see only what they want to see!
Blessings
John
Thanks for taking a look and responding Dale! I appreciate it. Two comments:
A. “Jewish monotheism is, true, compatible with there being other “gods” (elohim); and in general, all the Abrahamic monotheisms allow any number of lesser gods, deities, or divine beings.” Here’s where I’ve started to use the word “divine” very carefully. As I understand Bauckham, Jewish monotheism will not tolerate a scale of divinity stretching from the most divine being(s) to the least divine beings. One either is or is not divine. Any extra “gods” are not divine (i.e. they don’t create, ought not to be worshipped, etc). Bauckham uses the unfortunate phrase “unique divine identity” to express this idea. I prefer just to reserve the word “divine” for that task. So I suppose in your lingo, a GOD would be a divine person (or maybe also a group of divine persons). But no god (that is not also a GOD) is divine.
B. The second argument seems closest to what I’m getting at:
1. Any agent of creation (or sovereign rule, or rightful object of worship) is a divine agent (in this absolute sense)
2. Jesus the agent creates (etc)
3. Jesus the agent is a divine agent.
Can 1 and 2 be fair to scripture? I think so, but it is of course a matter for exegesis which is another story. And it could still go either with respect to Clarke’s subordinationism or Bauckham’s (implicit) ST.
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This is part of the problem we get, as Trinitarians (and post-Trinitarians, if I have to acknowledge any legitimacy there), when we equate the person of the Father with the appelation “Father” given to YHWH. It’s the root of the monarchical heresy by which the alternatives come to be either subordinationist or tritheist. But YHWH is not a person of the Trinity. YHWH is called the Father, but “the Father” is not YHWH in any exclusive sense. What is true of Jesus in the scriptural witness is that God became incarnate. YHWH, who for the covenant people is the Father, becomes father and son in a quite literal sense. But YHWH, who for the covenant people is the Father, has also always been Spirit. Of course, in this direction lies modalism—unless we affirm the full validity of each of these existences of the one God. If these modes of being are eternal realities, acts of being to which God is eternally faithful, we must affirm that YHWH is these three.
The problem appears when you try to work backwards from the presupposition that these three are ontologically distinct and separate. Your attempts at arguing monotheism from this presupposition just demonstrate how ridiculous it is. You can’t get one from three. You can only do it if you get three from one, and hold on to the one who is these three. And you can’t do that, at all, if you take the Hebrew assertion that YHWH is the Father and cram it into one third of the Trinitarian logic by which Father, Son, and Spirit are YHWH.
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