What does one do when the search for truth clashes with one’s need to fit in? I think it’s a pretty interesting, wide-ranging conversation with Adam for his CuriousChristianity channel. Topics include intellectual honesty and dishonesty, whether or not we can directly choose our beliefs, how a main feature of trinitarian traditions is avoidance of the topic, divine omnipresence, willingness to hear the other side of an issue, our tendency to flock together with those who agree with us, the depressing fact that theological experts disagree among themselves, the accessibility of the New Testament to ordinary people, the catholic “canon within the canon,” Jesus’ authority to forgive sins in Mark 2 and Matthew 9, where I go to church, worries about unitarians being cultists, elite gate-keeping, fallacies about what “early Christians” thought, the range of mainstream Christian theologies in the 3rd century, what unitarians think about trinitarians, how trinitarian nominally trinitarian churches actually are, what beliefs are essential to being a Christian, what it takes to be a member of the human race, how Jesus truly shares our lot in life, Ligers and Tions, whether Jesus is “a mere man,” why we don’t need to speculate that Jesus has “a divine nature,” Jesus’ temptations, a 3D vs. 2D analogy to explain why the Trinity may not seem possible to us, why I have never objected that “the Trinity is obviously incoherent,” my objection that the New Testament doesn’t actually motivate any Trinity theory, the argument strategy in my opening salvo in an upcoming 4-views book on the Trinity, Jesus being a man vs. his being “man,” what I think “the Holy Spirit” is, Matthew 28:19, and early Christian unity slogans.
If I seem a little uncomfortable here, it’s because I was! I had an odd pain off and on in my throat, and felt light-headed – it was a short-lived cold or something coming on.
Here are a couple of relevant podcast episodes:
Hi Dale, in this video you said that in the third century Christian theologians were Logos theorists who held to the subordination of the Son. What do you make of this doctrinal statement from Gregory of Thaumaturgus:
“There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is His subsistent Wisdom and Power and Eternal Image: perfect Begetter of the perfect Begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, Only of the Only, God of God, Image and Likeness of Deity, Efficient Logos… true Son of true Father, Invisible of Invisible, and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal and Eternal of Eternal. And there is One Holy Spirit, having His subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to wit to men: Image of the Son, Perfect Image of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of the living; Holy Fount; Sanctity, the Supplier, or Leader, of Sanctification… There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything superinduced, as if at some former period it was non-existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever.”
As far as I can tell, this doctrinal statement is the first to espouse true trinitarianism (that is, not subordinationism) since it says that “there is nothing created or in servitude in the Trinity.” But this is a bit surprising to me since Gregory of Thaumaturgus was a student and admirer of Origen, who clearly taught unitarianism and subordinationism.
Is there another way to read this statement? Also, if he was trinitarian, was Gregory of Thaumaturgus just a singularity, and happened to develop the same theology that was developed in the fourth century, or could the fourth century trinitarians have been influenced by him? Thanks!
Hi Andrew – this is a great question. If you listen to the Novatian episodes, my view is rather that the three views current at the time were modalism, what we now call biblical unitarianism, and logos theories – with the last preferred among the elite leadership. Present-day experts don’t trust the late 4th c. report that you quote. When something looks too good to be true – e.g. expressing Nicene orthodoxy in the 200s – it probably is!
“Enrico Norelli writes, “A profession of faith is contained in Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Gregory the Wonderworker; its authenticity has likewise been recently called into question (by L. Abramowski). The profession consists of four articles, having to do respectively with the Father, the Son, the Spirit, and the Trinity; there is no reference to the incarnation. It is meant to remove the dangers of Origenist subordinationism by emphasizing the point that there is nothing created, nothing of servant status, within the Trinity, nor anything introduced into the Trinity only at a certain point. The breadth of the last two articles cannot easily be fitted into the third century, since the points taken up in these two articles were still marginal at that time. In addition, Basil of Caesarea, who was well acquainted with the heritage of the Wonderworker, says nothing of this formula, even in circumstances in which it would have been useful to cite it. Gregory of Nazianzus quotes from the fourth article as from a recently composed profession of faith. While it is difficult to imagine Gregory of Nyssa forging anything, for it would have been quickly denounced, it is likely that at least the last two articles were formulated in the second half of the fourth century (M. Simonetti).” (Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature, vol. 1, p. 310)” http://earlychristianwritings.com/gregory.html
Comments are closed.