The poll below is an interesting one. (The bogus one to the left is only fun, but not interesting.) As I write this post, it is still current, and is available for voting at the upper right of the main blog page.
Which of these is false?
- The Christian God is a self.
- The Christian God is the Trinity.
- The Trinity is not a self.
One option is to vote that none are false, since all are true. As I write this, 27% have picked this option. But this is a poor pick. This “is” here is the “is” of numerical identity throughout. Given this, it is impossible that all three be true; they are demonstrably inconsistent. (The logical form is: 1. g=s, 2. g=t, 3. -(t=s).) At least one must be false.
- If 1 & 2, then not-3. If this God is a self, and is the Trinity, and it must be false that the Trinity is not a self.
- If 1 & 3 then not-2. If God’s a self, and the Trinity isn’t, then it must be false that God just is the Trinity.
- If 2 & 3 then not-1. If God’s the Trinity, but is not a self, then it is false that the Christian God is a self.
Why then do 27% opt for inconsistency (affirming all three)? I’m not sure.
- It could simply be desire for orthodoxy being stronger than the desire to avoid believing falsehoods.
- Or perhaps some imagine that “human logic” can be ignored; inconsistent claims may each be true, at least about God.
- Maybe it’s clinging to the mysterian hope that this must be a merely apparent contradiction, though no one can make that appearance recede.
- Or perhaps they’re misreading 1, as if it said only that the Christian God is personal – not a self, but somehow self-like or closely related to at least one self. (Compare: being a king vs. being kingly.) If this is the case, then when tutored on how “is” is meant here, such folk should probably pick another option. To avoid this confusion, we could rephrase the inconsistent triad thusly:
- The Christian God is a certain self.
- The Christian God is the Trinity.
- The Trinity is not any self.
This triad has a different logical form (1. Ex (x=g & Sx) 2. g = t, 3. -Ex(x=t & Sx)), but the three are still demonstrably inconsistent. It’s just that the proof is harder. I think this is actually a better way to formulate the inconsistent triad. (Reading the logic I just gave: 1. There exists some x which just is God and which is a self. 2. God just is the Trinity. 3. It’s not the case that there exists some x such that it just is the Trinity and it’s a self.)
Let’s run through the other options briefly. I list the poll percentages as of the writing of this post.
- If you deny 1 (29%), you’re probably some sort of “social” trinitarian. You think God is a group, a community, communion, a quasi-family, consisting of three divine selves.
- If you deny 3 (11%), you’re probably some sort of modalist. You think that God, that is, the Trinity, has a first-person point of view. He’s a self all right, though he operates in three different ways, as Father, Son, and Spirit, or maybe Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier. He’s group-like perhaps, but is not literally a group. He’s a god, and the only god.
- If you deny 2 (33%), you’re probably some sort of unitarian. You think the one god is the Father, and that the Trinity isn’t a god, but is rather God, God’s Son, and God’s Spirit.
And since one can always tell what is true by consulting simple, tiny-sample internet polls, this shows that unitarianism is true… today. 😉
Marg
I agree!
John
The description that ONCE was acceptable to me was, “The Trinity is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.”
The last two titles are nowhere found in the Bible, and I discarded THAT description long ago as false.
However, I can see nothing wrong with the definition,
I wish that were the definition “generally acceptable to the majority of Christians” now.
Marg
I,m not objecting to any description -just commenting on the fact that the one given used to be generally acceptable to the majority of Christians -myself included.
John
The description you object to is Dale’s – not mine. Read the article, John.
Marg
What you describe as the Trinity is what used to be described as ‘The Godhead” (a sort of ‘family of God”)- and I was quite happy to let things remain at that!
It was the insistance of evangelicals that Christ=God ,that caused thinking people to consider that matter a great deal more carefully
I am grateful to Dale Tuggy for entering the fray and bringing his logical perspective to the subject.
Blessings
John
blockquote>You think the one god is the Father, and that the Trinity isn’t a god, but is rather God, God’s Son, and God’s Spirit.
That is exactly what I believe (although I did not take part in the poll).
That seems to make me a “trinitarian-unitarian,” if I really need a label.
Dale, which of these is false?
1. God foreknew with certitude, before the creation of heaven and earth, that Adam and Eve would rebel against him before procreating offspring.
2. Human beings are created with libertarian free will.
It is impossible that both are true; they are inconsistent.
The affirmation of libertarian free will negates the possibility that God foreknew with certitude, before the creation of heaven and earth, that Adam and Eve would rebel against him before procreating offspring, making it unsound that God created everything “through,” or “by means of,” a nonexistent, ideal Messiah. In other words, the affirmation of libertarian free will conflicts with the denial of Jesus’ prehuman existence.
(Sorry for annoying you and for being totally off-topic.)
Silouan,
Does this mean that your God is an ‘it’ – as opposed to a ‘he’?
Blessings
John
I guess in these terms I’d be a “social trinitarian,” in that I think selfhood is a function of hypostases, not of natures. There’s only one human nature, though there are six billion hypostases running around calling themselves “I.” And the three hypostases of the Godhead are one in their single, divine nature. The divine persons speak as one because they don’t have our dysfunctional confusion of identity and communion.
Tangent: I wonder if it’s even possible to frame your question in E-Prime? (English without the verb To Be: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime) That’s often a useful tool for clarifying questions and assertions, since it restricts us to using “is” only for explicit equation.
This was a very astute poll, and your analysis is excellent.
Dale
An excellent post which raised many good points.!
Sadly, I sense that ‘fear’ is the force which causes good men to ignore the meaning of words, and logic, and hang on to ideas which are ‘time expired’.
The answer to your questions lies NOT in philosophy or theology – but in behavioural science.
Every Blessing
John
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